{"id":611650,"date":"2022-04-06T06:33:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T10:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=611650"},"modified":"2022-04-07T16:54:47","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T20:54:47","slug":"ousmane-dembele-barcelona-contract-talks-could-reopen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/04\/06\/ousmane-dembele-barcelona-contract-talks-could-reopen\/","title":{"rendered":"Ousmane Dembele Barcelona Contract Hangs in Balance as Talks Could Reopen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ousmane Dembele and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/04\/05\/barcelona-centre-back-new-contract\/\" target=\"_self\">Barcelona<\/a> could reopen contract discussions after a meeting between the player&#8217;s agent and the club this week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1511126210826452997?s=20&amp;t=MUPii8DmAJ2nZbX4OgK7qA\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fabrizio Romano<\/a>, Dembele\u2019s agent Moussa Sissoko met Barcelona representatives in Marrakech, Morocco to repair relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Ousmane Dembele Barcelona Contract Talks Could Reopen<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It looked like the French talent would leave Barcelona in January after a disappointing spell at the club. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dembele joined Barca from Borussia Dortmund in 2017 for around \u00a3100 million plus significant add-ons. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 24-year-old has struggled to live up to his price tag. Dembele\u2019s attitude problems alongside his injury problems have led to him being out of favour at the club for some time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tensions came to a head in the January transfer window when <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/01\/20\/ousmane-dembele-furious-transfer-saga\/\" target=\"_self\">Dembele accused Barcelona of blackmail<\/a>. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The World Cup winner spoke out on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CY9UgOINJZ7\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Instagram<\/a>, he said:\u00a0 &#8220;As of today, I&#8217;m going to answer honestly without giving in to any form of blackmail.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;I forbid people from thinking that I&#8217;m not committed to this sporting project. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I forbid people from speaking for me or my agent, who I have total confidence in. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;m still under contract. I&#8217;m fully committed and at the disposal of the club and my coach.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve always given everything for my teammates and also for all the fans. That&#8217;s not going to change now.&#8221; He continued, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m not a man who cheats and even less so one who&#8217;s used to giving in to blackmail. Love can certainly be a variant of blackmail.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite it looking like Dembele was set to leave in January, against all odds he remained at the club.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>From Zero to Hero<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since the transfer window closed, Dembele has simply thrived at Barcelona.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The former Rennes winger has nine-goal involvements in his last six La Liga games. Helping Barcelona beat the likes of Real Madrid and Valencia. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dembele even received a standing ovation at the Camp Nou after his outstanding performance against Sevilla with the Frenchman assisting the only goal of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\">Felicidad en el Bar\u00e7a nivel: hinchas en pie despidiendo a Demb\u00e9l\u00e9. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LaCasaDelF%C3%BAtbol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LaCasaDelF\u00fatbol<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6oYvL7kyAK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/6oYvL7kyAK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; F\u00fatbol en Movistar Plus+ (@MovistarFutbol) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MovistarFutbol\/status\/1510722498429657094?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Will Dembele Stay?<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With Dembele finally showing the form Barcelona want from him, it is to be seen if the pair will agree to a new contract. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Barcelona\u2019s financial situation is still fragile, it is likely they will want Dembele to take a pay cut as the club tries to lower their costs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Xavi has already recruited <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/03\/22\/ac-milan-midfielder-franck-kessie-barcelona\/\" target=\"_self\">two signings for next season<\/a> who have yet to be announced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If Dembele can keep his form up until the end of the season, it will be hard for the Catalan club to let him go for free.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"tTwbKagHQERNtIuQV9-g_Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1389707235\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'tTwbKagHQERNtIuQV9-g_Q',sig:'de4pkp6YBr_HLgI7_bYvM4dYKNY79uIjptqJlC14RV4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1389707235',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ousmane Dembele and Barcelona could reopen contract discussions after a meeting between the player&#8217;s agent and the club this week. According to Fabrizio Romano, Dembele\u2019s agent Moussa Sissoko met Barcelona representatives in Marrakech, Morocco to repair relationships. Ousmane Dembele Barcelona Contract Talks Could Reopen It looked like the French talent would leave Barcelona in January [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4123,"featured_media":611737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1365,7188,28],"tags":[7377,8093,7433],"class_list":["post-611650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-liga","category-barcelona","category-rumours","category-transfers","tag-barca-news","tag-barca-transfers","tag-barcelona-rumours"],"modified_by":"Declan Wiseman, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}