Manchester City tell Carlos Tevez it's £50m or he must stay put
• Club ready to take hard line with unsettled striker
• Real Madrid, Milan and Inter among possible buyers
Manchester City are prepared to take a hardline stance with Carlos Tevez and keep him at Eastlands against his will unless they receive a suitable offer, informing the player it will be the club's decision and that they will not allow him to dictate what happens.
Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the chairman, has spoken to Tevez and his influential adviser, Kia Joorabchian, to ascertain why the club's captain feels he has to leave Manchester this summer. Tevez is campaigning for a move to Spain or Italy but Mubarak is not going to allow personal issues to influence his decision, particularly when there is a suspicion behind the scenes at Eastlands about the frequency with which the player's story has changed.
Tevez had blamed his poor relationship with the club's chief executive, Garry Cook, and the football administrator, Brian Marwood, for submitting a transfer request in December, but his latest statement explained that he wanted to leave England to be closer to his daughters, Florencia and Katie.
They live in Argentina and Tevez has told the club he has found it impossible to persuade their mother, Vanesa, to return to Manchester since the couple, now reconciled, split up and she moved to Buenos Aires last year.
City had been anticipating a renewed attempt from the Tevez camp to reignite the possibility of leaving Manchester, but the club are determined not to accede to his wishes unless they receive an offer close to their valuation of £50m. With Tevez earning in the region of £250,000 a week and firmly established as the best-paid player in English football, that means only a small and elite band of clubs could possibly have the money and stature to negotiate a suitable package.
Barcelona can be discounted due to a lack of interest and, though Juventus have made tentative inquiries, Tevez and Joorabchian appear to be basing their hopes on Internazionale, Milan or Real Madrid.
City are finding it difficult to see where a deal can materialise and, on that basis, they are still planning for Tevez to be at the club next season. Mubarak put him firmly in his place in December, refusing to countenance the possibility of selling and flying into England from Abu Dhabi to remind the player of his contractual obligations, and the club are willing to assert their authority again, regardless of the impact on his family life.
Tevez, currently with the Argentina national side in the Copa América, may now have to cling to the hope that a player-plus-cash exchange can be arranged with one of the potential buyers. Inter, for example, have several players, such as Wesley Sneijder, who could be used as bait. However, that would still leave City without their leading scorer and the man who won the Premier League's Golden Boot award last season alongside Manchester United's Dimitar Berbatov.
Roberto Mancini, the City manager, has frequently said that if players are unhappy it would be better for them to be sold, though he has been willing to make an exception in Tevez's case because of the player's value to the team. Tevez has either scored or set up almost half of the team's league goals over the past two seasons and Mancini is still prepared to work with him despite knowing it would be a tumultuous ride and, at times, a huge test to his authority.
Mancini, who took his first pre-season training session on Tuesday, said towards the end of last season that Tevez had implicitly told him he would stay, but that now appears to have been political positioning in a dispute that is causing both parties dismay.
