Ousmane Dembélé has insisted that contract negotiations at Barcelona continue and warned that he will not be “blackmailed” after he was left out of the squad and told to leave with immediate effect.
In a strongly worded statement that left open the possibility of his staying but revealed the severity of the breakdown in relations with the club, Dembélé said he would “not allow anyone to attribute intentions to me that I have never had” or “speak for me or my agent, who I trust entirely”. He also insisted that he “will not allow anyone to say I am not committed to the sporting project” – precisely the accusation aimed at him by Barcelona’s director of football, Mateu Alemany.
Dembélé responded after his exclusion from the squad to face Athletic Club on Thursday night and a public statement from Alemany ending negotiations over a new contract, in which the director said that the player no longer wanted to continue behind his current deal and announced Barcelona’s intention to move him on before the end of the transfer window.
Alemany suggested that Dembélé would not play for the club again because he was not “committed” to its future. The previous night, the coach, Xavi, had delivered a public ultimatum: renew or leave.
Dembélé has six months on his contract and has failed to reach an agreement on a new deal. The club have concluded that the 24-year-old has no intention of continuing, despite Xavi saying Dembélé had said he wanted to stay. Now they want to force a departure. If he does not leave now, he faces the prospect of spending the next six months left in the stands and the club have even investigated the possibility of rescinding his contract.
Barcelona need to shed his salary if they are to bring in players and, faced with the possibility of his leaving for free, want to make any saving they can on his wages between now and the summer. Dembélé, though, made clear that he does not intend to be forced out and said that negotiations continue in the hands of his agent. There was no commitment to renew.
“Today, 20 January, with 11 days left in the last window before the end of his contract, it is obvious that the player does not want to continue and is not committed to our future,” Alemany said. “In that scenario, he and his agents have been informed that he should leave immediately because we want players who are committed to our project. Therefore, we hope to transfer him before 31 January.
“We started conversations with Ousmane and his agents back in July, more or less. In all this time, these six or seven months, we have spoken, we have had dialogue, we have made various offers. We looked at ways that he could stay with us. All those offers were turned down by his agents. The fact that he is not in the squad is no more than a consequence of this whole process.
“The conclusion in sporting terms, as evaluated by the coaching staff, is that we don’t want players who are not committed. It’s not the club that takes this decision – the coach does – but he has all our support and we think it is an entirely coherent decision.”
Dembélé dismissed those accusations in a statement in which he said that four years of listening to “endless” “gossip”, “lies” and people “speaking for me”, seeking “only to harm me”, had “finally ended”.
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“I will not allow anyone to give the impression that I am not involved in the sports project,” he said. “I will not allow anyone to speak for me or my representative, whom I fully trust.
“Still under contract, I am fully involved and at the disposal of my club, my coach. I have always given everything for my colleagues and also for all the club members. I am not going to change that now. I am not a man who cheats and still less a man who has the habit of giving in to blackmail.”
“As you know, there are negotiations. I let my agent handle it, it’s his field. My field is the ball, playing football, sharing moments of joy with my teammates and the supporters. Above all, let’s focus on winning.”
Spain’s players’ union released a statement telling Barcelona it would be illegal to threaten to leave a player out to make him sign a contract.
