Relations are strained between the entourage of Ousmane Dembélé and FC Barcelona. At issue: the endless negotiations between the various parties for the extension of the player’s contract.
During the last negotiations, the Catalans offered the Frenchman an offer. Take it or leave it. Knowing that in case of refusal, he would not play for the club for six months until the end of his contract. A way of working that did not at all please Moussa Sissoko, one of the player’s advisers. “It’s a pressure move that doesn’t work with people like us”, he says on RMC Sport.
“Perhaps it can work with agents who are crony with FC Barcelona. This is not my case, I am here to defend the interests of my player”. Statements that say a lot about the state of the relationship between Dembélé and the Blaugrana leaders. “We are not here to fuel social media debates. But we have to tell the truth. Yes, we have demanding demands, but we have already shown that Ousmane’s career choices were not dictated by the money, otherwise he wouldn’t be here. Then if Barcelona wanted to negotiate, he could have tried to come to the table with us to discuss. Except that there is no discussion and threats not to play on their side anymore . And it is forbidden. We will assert the rights of Ousmane Dembélé if necessary”, he concluded.
Bad relationships from the start
As a reminder, Ousmane Dembélé is indeed demanding for his emoluments. The winger is asking… €40m per year plus a €20m signing bonus. A fortune for a player who has still missed more than 100 injury games since his arrival in 2017 for 140 million euros.
RMC Sport also highlights two events that caused the deleterious relations that exist today between the two clans. When signing for FCB, Ousmane Dembélé chose the Blaugrana project over Manchester United as the Red Devils offered him more money, according to the agent. Real Madrid was also ready to take the former Dortmund player and leave him on loan for a season so that he could take over from CR7 quietly.
The second is the true/false return of Neymar to Catalonia. At the time, FC Barcelona pushed Dembélé to sign at PSG in exchange for the Brazilian. Ernesto Valverde had called the striker to offer him to find a solution otherwise he would not play a minute under his orders.
Recently, Moussa Sissoko had also tackled the sports management of Xavi, the new FCB coach. “This sports management with this entry without training, just after the Covid, it is really difficult for us to understand”, he had declared for L’Equipe.
Under these conditions, it is difficult to imagine a future for Dembélé in Barcelona. Even if for RMC, the agent has not completely put an end to the future of his foal in Catalonia. “We don’t know what we’re going to do, nothing has been finalized. But the leaders are losing Ousmane alone. From the start, we have shown that we want to discuss, with conditions of course, but without closing the door.”
