Fiorentina are preventing Adrian Mutu from joining Cesena over fears they could be relegation rivals, claims his agent.

Cesena remain favourites to land the Romanian.

Mutu's agent Giovanni Becali said: "Fiorentina and Andrea Della Valle in particular don't want to sell Mutu to Cesena because, as the President told me, there is survival at stake and Cesena are a competitor.

"I met with Andrea Della Valle, Mencucci, another Fiorentina director and Pantaleo Corvino at the club's offices on Wednesday.

"Before then Corvino had 99.9 per cent agreed to the player's sale to Cesena who are ready to offer him a three and a half year contract with the option of an extra year.

"Cesena's President has confirmed as much to me again this morning. But Della Valle and the other directors preferred that Mutu be sold abroad.

"In the course of the meeting some insults were flying around, which were aimed at Adrian and I was told that he wouldn't be selected for the away match against Bologna.

"I didn't understand the reason why. I made the mistake of calling Adrian before he went out to train and told him that they only wanted to sell him abroad and that he was out of the team. He was angry and left the training ground.

"So it's not true that he wasn't selected because he skipped training. It had already been decided that he wouldn't be going to Bologna."