BarcelonaAchieved the minimum goal, to qualify for the Champions League, Barça is only waiting to certify the second place to know what sporting challenges it will have next season. The Super Cup is the least important title the club can play, but this is not about prestige but about money, and participation in this competition, which has been held in Saudi Arabia since 2019, is an economic blow that, in era of lean cows, is a blessing for the treasury of the Camp Nou. It will be with this money that the staff will be made, in a summer where, once again, the salary limit will condition affiliations, terminations and renewals.
Xavi Hernández has already written his letter to the Kings, and the list includes the name of Ousmane Dembélé. The French winger ends his contract and has offers – or at least that’s what his agent says – to change his mind this summer. However, the coach continues to trust the footballer, whom he has rescued from ostracism and has become an undisputed starter since taking over the bench. The egarenc and his staff they still think it’s an extreme that, “well worked out, can become the best in the world.” And these are the arguments they use to ask the club’s sports leadership to extend their contract.
The debate is intense and, numbers aside, in the offices it is not clear that any effort should be made to retain Dembélé. They cling to his history, to the acts of indiscipline he has accumulated over his five years in Barcelona, to the multiple injuries he has suffered – he has lost almost half of his matches – and, also, to the statistics of ‘this season. The French winger has played 30 games and scored just two goals. One in the League and one in the Cup. “But he has distributed 11 assists”, they retort from the locker room, who insist on not giving up the footballer. “It’s true that he continues to make bad decisions, but this can be worked out. We want him to stay,” said the coach. Xavi wants Dembélé to continue, but he is aware of the club’s situation and would understand that he could not be held back.
Dembélé maintains that he has much better offers from other clubs
Renovating Dembélé is no easy task. The series has been dragging on since last summer, and so far the footballer has refused to extend his contract with the Barça club, basically because he has not accepted a downward proposal that came to him from the noble offices of the Camp Nou . Similarly, he did not lend himself to leaving the club in the winter, in a move that sought to release too much salary to be able to incorporate someone in his place. Fed up with all this, in the sports area led by Mateu Alemany they decided to set him aside in retaliation. But the footballer, who even threatened to take the case to the AFE, returned to the pitch due to the insistence of a Xavi who is now praying to be able to count on the end next season. The problem is twofold. First of all, that at the end of his contract his case is interpreted – for the purposes of the salary limit of the League – as a new signing. And then, as Barça is exceeding this limit, he proposes a downward renewal that the player still does not want to accept.
According to ARA, Barça had planned to make one last attempt, at the end of the season, to renew the footballer. Of course, always earning less than now, which is around 20 million a year. His agent is running that the proposal is insufficient and pressures to ensure that he has an offer from PSG and another from the English Premier. A position that clearly serves to put pressure on Barça to improve the proposal. However, from the Camp Nou they answer that they are bound hand and foot by the famous limit, and that they cannot go further. Talks are set to resume this week, but the postures are inflexible, so it seems very difficult to come to fruition.
