Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Dembele’s decision to stay at Barcelona senseless, says club president

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has attacked French winger Ousmane Dembele after the 24-year-old failed to complete a deal away from the club on deadline day

• February 1, 2022
Ousmane Dembele and Joan Laporta
Ousmane Dembele and Joan Laporta

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has attacked French winger Ousmane Dembele after the 24-year-old failed to complete a deal away from the club on deadline day.

Barcelona had told the former Borussia Dortmund star to find a new club in the January transfer window having refused to sign a new deal over the past months.

With reports that clubs like Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain came in for the attacker before the transfer window shut, Laporta has come out to say that Dembele’s decision to stay at the Camp Nou makes “no sense”.

“We presented him with two proposals and they were good,” he said, as per goal.com.

“We are very surprised that he did not accept. The last one was from an English club and he did not want to go, he preferred to stay here for six months.

“It is not good neither for him nor for the club, because his renewal gave us salary margin and we would not have been having to work until the last minute.

“The whole Dembélé thing is difficult to understand. Xavi is working and has to think about next season. We think he has an agreement with another club. That’s what his agent has insinuated to us. We will act for the good of the club.”

Dembele’s contract at Barcelona expires at the end of June and if no agreement is reached before then, the French international would be a free agent.

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