Aston Villa take hard stance on £76.9m pair as Arsenal legend approach rejected

Aston Villa pair Luca Digne and Moussa Diaby have been stopped from playing for France at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Arsenal legend Thierry Henry is in charge of the hosts and he has named a 25-man preliminary squad for the matches and there is no representation from Villa’s French contingent.

Respected French paper L’Equipe report that Villa have blocked France’s bid to call up Diaby and Digne. Olympics football is an under-23s tournament but competing countries can call up three overage players. 

Crystal Palace’s Jean-Philippe Mateta who scored a hat-trick against Villa on the final day and former Arsenal striker Alexandre Lacazette are the two overaged players. France had planned to call up more but Thierry Henry revealed that a club - expected to be Aston Villa - rejected that request. 

“We received two ‘no’s’ twenty-five minutes ago, just before going down (to the press conference),” said the former Arsenal and Barcelona striker.

“It was difficult to go back to more (than two players over 23).

“But there will be three players over 23 in the final list, that’s for sure.”

If Diaby and Digne had been chosen they would have missed a period of Villa’s pre-season. Neither player has been called up to represent France at EURO 2024 and so this would have given them an opportunity to represent Les Bleus in a different competition.

Aston Villa's pre-season schedule so far consists of a trip to the United States of America to play three games across three cities. They play Colombus Crew in Ohio on July 27 before facing RB Leipzig at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey on July 31 before rounding off their tour against Mexican side Club America in Chicago on Saturday, August 3.

France's fixtures at the 2024 Olympic Games take place in Marseille and Nice, beginning on July 24 against the United States with the group stage phase concluding on July 30 against New Zealand after playing Guinea three days earlier. The Olympic Games football final will take place on Friday, August 9 at the Parc des Princes.