Barcelona Football Club have decided to sell off Ousmane Dembele during this January transfer window after failing to reach an agreement.
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This decision to sell the player was announced in a press conference by Barcelona's director of football, Mateu Alemany, ahead of the club's Copa del Rey's match against Athletic Club on Thursday, January 20th, 2022. According to the director, the club has been speaking to the player's agent for a new contract since July 2021.
With Ousmane and his agents, we have started conversations around the month of July. In all of this time, almost seven months, we have talked, Barca had made different offers, we have tried to find a way for the player to continue with us and those offers have been continuously rejected by his agents. It seems obvious to us that the player does not want to continue at Barcelona and is not committed to Barca's future project. We told him and his agents that he must leave the club immediately because we want to have players committed to the project. We expect a transfer to take place before January 31. The sporting consequence is that we don't want to have players who don't want to be at Barca. The fact that he was not in the squad list fot today is the consequence of this whole process. The coach has our full support. It is a consistent attitude.
The 24-year-old joined Barcelona during the summer transfer window of the 2017/18 season for €105 million. A transfer fee which made him the joint-second most expensive footballer as at that time alongside his country man Paul Pogba.
