Ousmane Dembele to leave Barcelona before 31 January
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| Ousmane Dembele in action |
The Frenchman forward, Ousmane Dembele has been in ups and downs with Barcelona since arrived from Borussia Dortmund in 2017 but this season it seems that he is looking for a new challenge and he doesn’t want to stay at the Camp Nou as his contract is about to expire.
The 24-year-old has been in talks over a new deal and there is no agreement made between the two parties despite having a new contract offer on the table for a number of weeks.
Barcelona has shown that they want to give up after several deals offer have been turned down and currently stands to lose him on a free transfer at the end of this season but they decide to take action to sell him out before the end of this month.
Barcelona has confirmed that Dembele will not be part of the squad that travels to Athletic Bilbao for their round of 16 Copa del Rey clash on Thursday evening.
Director of football Mateu Alemany, who is not happy with Dembele’s decision revealed that the talks with Dembele representative began a long time ago last year July until now but there is no progress.
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| Mateu Alemany |
‘We understand Dembele’s decision is to not continue (at Barça) and we’ve communicated our decision (to leave him out),’ Alemany said.
‘We want players that are committed to the club and we have told him he has to leave the club as soon as possible.
‘We started talks in July. We have made several offers, which were all rejected. He has been told that he must leave the club, he is not committed to the project.’ Mateu Alemany said.
It was reported that Dembele demanded a ‘crazy’ salary package worth up to €80million (£66.9m), following months of contract negotiations.
But Barcelona is not currently impossible to offer Dembele an improved contract due to their financial status.
However, Dembele’s agent Moussa Sissoko reported denied and criticized that, it was not down due to financial disagreements, but instead of new Barcelona manager Xavi’s poor management style.
Reports had also suggested that Dembele was given just 48 hours to sign a reduced deal. But Sissoko said:
‘They’re putting the pressure on, but it doesn’t work with people like us. Maybe it works with agents who are close to Barcelona. That’s not the case with me, I’m here to defend my player’s interests.
‘We’re not here to react to debates on social media, but the truth has to be said. Yes, we have high demands, but we’ve shown in the past that Ousmane’s career choices are not dictated by money, else he wouldn’t be here [Manchester United and Real Madrid had higher offers in 2017].
‘Then, if Barcelona wanted to negotiate, they could have come to the table with us to talk.
‘Except there are no discussions and there are threats coming from them that he won’t play.
‘That’s not allowed. We will exercise Ousmane Dembele’s rights if necessary.
‘We don’t know what we’re going to do, nothing is decided. But the management is losing Ousmane by themselves.
‘From the start, we’ve shown that we wanted to negotiate, with terms, but without closing the door.’
