Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis rubbished reports, which claimed Juventus had contacted Napoli over a move for Gonzalo Higuain, during a press conference after the Serie A general meeting in Milan.

The 28-year-old striker has been linked with moves to Arsenal and Juventus this summer, with many newspapers even reporting that the latter had opened talks with the player and his club.

However, De Laurentiis, who has always been willing to send off Higuain for €97m, made a mockery of the rumours, stating Juventus’ Chief Executive Officer even told him on Monday morning that the Old Lady would never mull over triggering his €97m release clause.

“Juventus are a classy club; they’ve never wanted to pay the release clause,”  said De Laurentiis. “There has never been a real contact between us because Juventus don’t want to trigger the player’s release clause which is also what Giuseppe Marotta told me this morning.”

Despite publicly taking Juventus out of the transfer picture, he seemed to emphasize subtly on Napoli’s interest to cash in on the interested parties’ need for a world-class striker.

“Higuain has still two years left on his five-year deal with Napoli. There is also a release clause. If someone arrives saying ‘I am going to pay € 97 million for Higuain’ and if the player wants to join them, we’d be happy to meet his request.”

Juventus were reported to be willing to send Simone Zaza and Roberto Pereyra the other way to secure the services of the Serie A top-scorer, but Marotta announced that they would never entertain a player-plus-cash deal.

"Marotta told me he’s not even thinking about paying the player’s release clause. We are not going to sign Pereyra and Zaza. We have plenty of strikers and we don’t want problems in the changing room.”

Although it is now a given that Arsenal can get their target just by triggering the release clause, the reports that claim that Arsenal may use their first-choice striker Olivier Giroud as a part of the deal hardly make any sense now.

De Laurentiis' words can be considered neither a boost nor a blow to Arsenal’s pursuit of Higuain, but his interview gives a clearer picture of the transfer saga.

Arsene Wenger seemingly pulled out of the race for Alvaro Morata and Alexandre Lacazette because of their respective clubs’ ridiculous valuations of the strikers. However, a move for Higuain is very much on the cards, as Wenger is known to be a long-term admirer of the Argentine.