Mateu Alemany did not hold his tongue when assessing the reasons why the club has decided to eliminate Ousmane Dembélé from the equation. According to the director of football, the attitude of the French winger has been totally intolerable and disrespectful towards the entity and the only possible way out is his immediate departure. After meeting this morning with the player himself to inform him of the decision that he would not travel to Bilbao, Alemany made a forceful allegation against Dembélé through the official media.
“We began negotiations in the month of July approximately with their agents. During these six or seven months we have talked, Barça has made several offers to find a way to continue with us. These offers have been systematically rejected by their agents”, explained Alemany, clearly putting his finger on the sore spot in the figure of Moussa Sissoko, Dembélé’s representative, and for many the main and only culprit of having reached this situation of final ultimatum.
“Today, January 20, eleven days before closing the last term within his contract, it is evident and it seems obvious to us that the player does not want to continue at Barcelona and he is not committed to the future project of Barça. In this stage, he and his agents have been told to leave immediately because we want players committed to this project and therefore we hope that a transfer will take place before January 30,” Alemany stated bluntly.
Likewise, the director of football explained that the decision to leave Dembélé out of the list for the Cup match against Athletic has been made by the coach, Xavi Hernández, and the club has backed it one hundred percent: “I insist, we do not want to have in our squad players who are not committed to the project and who do not want to be with Barça, therefore if he is not summoned it is a consequence of this. The club is not the one who should decide if a player enters the list or not, it is the coach. He has our full support and we think it’s a totally coherent attitude.”