Barcelona has denied that the acquisition of rights of first refusal to purchase Saúl Ñíguez, José María Giménez, and three non-senior players from Atlético Madrid is at all connected to the Antoine Griezmann transfer, according to Diario SPORT.
El Mundo and ESPN had reported that Barcelona gave 15 million euros to Atlético in exchange for the option on five players as a way of making peace with the Madrid-based team over the transfer of the Frenchman. The way this option would work is that Atlético would have to let Barcelona know of any offer that came through for any of these players, and allow the Catalans to match it before accepting the offer.