Joan Laporta, the Barcelona president, yesterday attempted to thwart Chelsea’s interest in Ronaldinho by warning the London club that it would cost £85 million to secure his services. All top players in Spain have prohibitively expensive buy-out clauses written into their contracts designed to ward off potential suitors.

Barcelona rejected Chelsea’s £50 million offer for Ronaldinho three years ago and, after fighting off several approaches from AC Milan this summer, are confident of keeping hold of the Brazil star. Roman Abramovich met the player’s brother and agent, Roberto de Assis Moreira, in London last weekend but Chelsea have yet to make a formal bid.

“I am hostile to any move for any of our top stars and the only way in which any club could obtain Ronaldinho would be to pay the full amount of his buy-out clause,” Laporta said. “During the summer we rejected an extremely strong move from AC Milan to buy Ronaldinho.

“We have taken a decision that we want to count on our top stars for this season because we depend on them and we owe a debt to what they have done for this club. My mobile is switched off for any phone call which is made to express interest in buying these players from us.”

Chelsea’s position should be clearer when Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, meets Laporta at the Champions League draw in Monaco tomorrow, though at the moment José Mourinho, the manager, is continuing to plan without Ronaldinho. Chelsea’s players have been discussing the prospect of welcoming such a notable teammate, however, with John Terry yesterday claiming he would have to improve defensively to play under Mourinho.

“Our wide men going forward have defensive responsibilities as well,” Terry said. “We have seen that José has taken off Wrighty [Shaun Wright-Phillips] and [Joe] Cole because they have not been doing the defensive side of things and it takes players a while to learn that, otherwise you come off.”