Monday, January 17, 2022 at 10:05 am• Tom Rofekamp • Last update: 10:39

Barcelona has given Ousmane Dembélé 48 hours to accept the club’s renewed contract proposal, it knows Mundo Deportivo. If the attacker or his agent does not respond, the Catalans will cooperate in a departure. Mundo Deportivo is diametrically opposed to Gerard Romero with the message, who reported last Sunday that Dembélé had long and broadly decided about his future.

Sources within Barcelona told the Spanish sports newspaper that there has been no formal response to the renewed contract proposal, from either Dembele himself or his agent Moussa Sissoko. It doesn’t matter what the answer is, as long as the response doesn’t appear within 48 hours. If the response is negative, Barcelona wants to force a winter departure from Dembélé. The attacker earns approximately ten million gross at the club, which would free up a lot of space in the salary house. Among other things, Barcelona would like to use a playing ban for the coming six months as an asset.

Romero reported on Sunday that Dembele has already made his decision about the future. The wing forward would like to leave the club on a free transfer in the summer and would not like a winter departure. According to the usually reliable Romero, Barcelona will also make no further attempts to convince Dembele to sign the current contract proposal, even though the attacker is well in the market due to his upcoming transfer-free status. The journalist assures that the club management will formally withdraw the proposal and immediately lower the transfer clause of four hundred million euros to an as yet unknown amount.

Dembélé only wants to sign a new contract until mid-2027 if there is a total of two hundred million euros gross in return. An amount that the financially troubled club absolutely cannot afford. However, the Frenchman also asks for a one-time commission of twenty million euros and his management asks for an identical fee. According to Romero, Dembele believes that he belongs to ‘the elite of football’ and that such a contract suits his status. However, it is financially impossible for Barcelona, ​​apart from the fact that the club has a different opinion.

Barcelona paid no less than 105 million euros to Borussia Dortmund for Dembele in the summer of 2017. An additional 40 million euros in possible bonuses for the German club were added. A particularly lucrative deal for Dortmund, as the club had paid Stade Rennes five million euros a year earlier. The 24-year-old Frenchman was never able to meet the sky-high expectations, partly due to injuries. After almost five seasons, the counter stands at just 129 games and 31 goals.