Shakhtar Donetsk coach Mircea Lucescu confirmed last night that FC Barcelona defender and Ukranian international Dmytro Chygrynskiy will be part of the Ukrainian team come next season.

“It is true, he is a great player and I wanted to have him back, we have not paid the €25 million we sold him for, but he is still the most expensive signing in clubs history,” the Romanian coach told Catalan radio station RAC1, inadvertently hinting at the figures.

Lucescu added that the player “Is happy because he wanted to play professionally, but it is not easy to leave a club like Barca.”

Chygrynskiy’s soon to be coach-again expressed his view on the performances of Chygrynskiy at Barca, saying, “It was hard for him to enter immediately into a club as big as Barca, because it costs more on defense than on offense,” but added that, “I think his ambition is to return some day,” Lucescu concluded.

FC Barcelona defender and Ukrainian international Dmytro Chigrinskiy (23) reportedly told Ukranian sports site terrikon that he will be returning to hometown club Shakhtar Donetsk, confirming reports emerging from Catalan radio station RAC1 this evening.

Although Dmytro did not reveal the conditions of the transfer, details are soon expected to be out as both FC Barcelona and the Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk are about to confirm the transfer.

When asked about the news emanating in the Spanish press about his return to Shakhtar, Dmytro replied curtly: “I agree”.

FC Barcelona president, Sandro Rosell, stressed today that former Barcelona player and coach Johan Cruyff is “without a doubt the symbol of Barcelona”, who is a “living legend”  and that he “should be treated as such.”

Rosell told reporters during his meeting in Merida with the President of the Junta de Extremadura, Guillermo Fernandez Vara, that the creation of the position of Honorary President shall be voted upon at the next Assembly of commissioners, so Cruyff could be given back his honour. The position will be “democratically elected by the members of the club, because they are the true owners of the club,” said Rosell.

Regarding his meeting with Cesc Fabregas’ mother at the Circuit de Catalunya during the World Championships, Rosell has refused to speak of the possibility of signing the player because, in his view, “parents have to stay outside the football careers of their children. “

As reported by news agency ISNA on Monday, the management of FC Barcelona has decided to open a football academy in Iran. A representative of the Spanish football champions reportedly met with an executive of the Esteqlal Tehran team in Tehran to discuss the possibility of opening some football schools and a football academy in the Middle Eastern country.

Esteqlal Tehran, a team which finished third in the Iranian Premier League, might be open to a cooperative deal with Barcelona as they also discussed a possible training camp in Barcelona.

The Iranian football federation plans to massively restructure their football system, as they failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup in South Africa. According to supersport.com, the main attention in Iran will be aimed on the youth sector with the ultimate goal of providing a new team with potential for next year’s Asian championship in Qatar.