There was talk of Chelsea and Tottenham until the last moments of the transfer window on Monday evening. Finally, Ousmane Dembélé, a time also announced on the side of PSG, remained a player of FC Barcelona. To the chagrin of Catalan leaders, furious at the idea of seeing a player who landed for 145 million euros in Dortmund go free this summer in 2017, under the presidency of Josep Maria Bartomeu.
The current management of Barça gave a press conference on Tuesday morning to discuss the “very serious criminal conduct” of its predecessor, which led to the opening of a judicial investigation. The current president Joan Laporta has in particular pinned “payments without object”, “payments with a fallacious object” and “disproportionate payments”. There is no doubt that the recruitment of Dembélé, like that of Antoine Griezmann in 2019, falls within this latter framework.
“He didn’t want to accept any of the proposals we made to him,” said Laporta, relayed by the daily Sport about the contract extensions offered to the 24-year-old international winger, 2018 world champion. “It’s not good for him or the club,” he continued, explaining that this new contract would have ” given salary margin ”to the Blaugrana, in a very complicated financial situation.
Already an agreement with another club?
“We believe he has an agreement with another club and we will act in our own interest,” Laporta also said. While waiting to reach other skies this summer, with a nice signing bonus on the way, Dembélé could well have a lot of free time, if we read the words of his president between the lines.