2023-08-12 10:40:28
Barcelona It was January 2018. Ousmane Dembélé had been at Barça for less than half a year. The winger was recovering from the first injury he suffered while wearing a Blaugrana shirt and which left him without playing for four months. In an informal conversation with Josep Maria Bartomeu, a group of journalists asked him about the player’s physical condition. The president looked up, “The problem isn’t in the leg, it’s here,” he said, pointing to his forehead. Six seasons after that signing that cost 105 million, fifteen injuries and countless headaches, Ousmane Dembélé is already history. He is going to Paris Saint-Germain. Friday night he signed all the paperwork and Saturday morning the two clubs made it official. He leaves in exchange for 50.4 million euros. Although, of these, about 15 will go into the player’s pocket.
Dembélé’s move to Barça has been so famous that he has been talked about more in terms of extra-sport than football. He has been injured fourteen times. Fifteen, if you count the leave due to coronavirus, which he contracted when he got married in the middle of the pandemic – to everyone’s surprise – and celebrated with all the honors and without protective measures. In these six seasons, Barça has played 330 official matches and Mosquit has missed 119 due to injury. Little more than the third part. When asking the club or the dressing room why, the answers were varied. From bad eating habits to not respecting the hours of sleep. Not to mention the times he was late to training. The situation was so grotesque that, for a while, his neighbors in Barcelona’s Mercè district were talking about anecdotes every day. “The player is tired of people always talking bad about him”, pointed out official Barça sources, still during Bartomeu’s tenure. “Yes, but he doesn’t do his part,” the interlocutors usually answered.
Dembélé’s high fee, added to the pending repayment, meant that Barça could not find a club to buy the player, or that none of the proposals received were interesting. And so we reached the summer of 2021, when at the end he had a single year left on his contract. The exit was closer, but an injury to France threw any transfer option on the ground. He was supposed to be injured for three weeks and it was more than four months. That Christmas, with Barça suffocated by ‘fair play’, the club tried to get Dembélé out, even if it was in the form of a transfer, in order to gain some margin and for the team to be strengthened. The player, with the advice of his agent, Moussa Sissoko, flatly refused. And the sports management’s response was to remove him from the discipline of the first team. Xavi Hernández, who had recently taken over the culer bench, dealt with Mateu Alemany – director of football – to reconfigure the situation. And he succeeded. Xavi had been a great endorser of Dembélé, of whom he assured that “with good work he can become the best in the world in his position”.
The coach’s insistence was key for Dembélé, once his contract expired in the summer of 2022, to renew with Barça. The player’s financial claims were astronomical. Additionally, his agent wanted a signing bonus that he had been denied in 2017. Since there was no way to come to an agreement, a compromise was found. A contract for two seasons, with an easy exit clause for this summer provided the player brought an offer of 50 million. In return, half of what the club received would be shared between Dembélé and his agent.
But, when everything was ready and Dembélé was on his way to Paris, Barça considered that the footballer had not fulfilled part of his contract and threatened to keep the 25 million that corresponded to him as a bonus. A tug-of-war that lasted almost two weeks and seemed destined to end up in court. Official Barça sources have assured this newspaper that, finally, 35 million will go “entirely” to the Blaugrana coffers and that 15 will go to the player. Additionally, and through a statement, Barça has assured that it has not negotiated the sale of Dembélé with PSG, but that the money (50.4 million) corresponds to what was already signed by contract.
Money to sign up pending players
Until yesterday, Barça only had 12 members registered because they did not comply with the regulations of fair play of the League. The commercial agreement announced yesterday and the departure of footballers such as Franck Kessie and Ousmane Dembélé should allow Xavi Hernández to have the entire current squad at his disposal. The first to complete the procedure was Araujo, and the next was Gündogan. The rest must be registered during the day.
#PSG #pays #million #signing #Dembélé #official