A representative of a group linked to billionaire financier George Soros met with AS Roma's top shareholder last week, the Italian soccer club said on Monday.

Italpetroli, the club's main shareholder, had previously only said it had met a representative of an unnamed potential investor. After discussions with Consob, Italy's bourse regulator, Italpetroli and the club confirmed in a joint statement media reports that the meeting was with Inner Circle Sports, a global sports investment and advisory bank connected to 77-year-old Soros.

"(The meeting had) a purely explorative nature," AS Roma and Italpetroli said in the statement.

In an earlier statement on Monday, Italpetroli denied it had begun the process of selling its controlling stake or that it had received an offer to buy the club. Media reports have also linked the rulers of Dubai with a possible bid, but the statement said Italpetroli had received "no offer from the Arab Emirates royal family," and all such press reports were "groundless."

Sporadic rumors have also circled about interest in fellow leading Italian soccer club Juventus. Juventus Chairman Giovanni Cobolli Gigli told a news conference in Milan that foreign investors were entitled to buy stock on the market, but "certainly not a majority stake." Cobolli Gigli was speaking at an event showcasing Juventus's recent agreement with marketing company Sportfive, part of French conglomerate Lagardere, to sell the naming rights to the club's new stadium.

Juventus and Sportfive said the process of finding sponsors for the stadium, which is to be ready for the 2011/12 season, had just begun but ruled out companies in the car and sportswear market because of existing sponsorship ties to Fiat SpA and Nike Inc. The deal would be the first of its kind in Italy, but several soccer stadiums in Germany and Britain are named after sponsors.