July 06, (THEWILL) – Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona, has given Ousmane Dembele a contract deadline, and stated that despite intense financial pressure, the club does not want to let Frenkie de Jong go this summer.
The debts owed by the Catalan giants have gotten out of hand recently as a result of lavish contracts and exorbitant transfer fees paid to a number of players, many of whom have either left the club or are set to do so in order to balance the books, while the club has sold a portion of the television rights to raise money. They have also been unable to sign new players, Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen, due to their excessive wage bill – a problem they first encountered when signing Ferran Torres from Manchester City in January.
United is close to an agreement for De Jong, and if all add-ons and bonus payments are made, he may cost the Red Devils as much as €85 million. But, Laporta has since changed his mind about Barcelona’s letting go of De Jong, saying the club has “no intention” of doing so. He repeated this position again during Kessie’s unveiling, saying the club will not sell to United until they want to.
“He’s a Barca player. And unless we have an interest in selling in the future, he’s a Barça player. We don’t want to sell him. We know he has offers. Now we don’t want to sell, but it could interest us,” Laporta said.
On Dembele, the president was clear: “Dembele has an offer, they have answered and we continue talking. And we are willing to continue talking until we are interested. If he does not accept our proposal, it cannot be. He has to accept it because if not, there is no interest on our part. We have to adapt the files to the salary scale that we have marked, so that there are no imbalances.”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
