Catalan sports paper Sport reports that Barcelona would be interested in Napoli midfielder and Slovakian international Marek Hamsik (22). Hamsik has played in Serie A since 2004, where he has played in Brescia and Napoli. During this time he has scored 26 goals in 86 league appearances, and his excellent performances have attracted the interest of several European top clubs, including Barcelona.

The young midfielder still has two and a half years to run on his current contract and with his national team Slovakia set to compete at next summer’s World Cup in South Africa, the fee required to take Hamsik away from Napoli would be considerably more than the sum they stumped up two seasons ago, when he joined Napoli from Brescia in 2007 for a fee in the region of 5.5 million euros. Hamsik has impressed on the international stage so far, scoring twice in qualification as Vladimir Weiss’ team qualified for the World Cup finals for the first time.

Despite the interest towards the versatile midfielder, Napoli sporting director Riccardo Bigon denied any speculations that their star player would leave his current club to join Barcelona. “The player is not going anywhere. He thinks along the same lines as us,” Bigon revealed to Italian daily newspaper Il Mattino.