Wednesday. 06.11.2024

Barcelona director of football Mateu Alemany has informed Ousmane Dembele to "leave the club immediately" after repeatedly turning down the offer of a new contract.

The Catalan giants have been in talks with the France international since July over extending his existing deal, which runs out at the end of this season.

Dembele has struggled to establish himself as a key player at Camp Nou since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2017 due to persistent injury setbacks.

Barca head coach Xavi recently insisted Dembele could become the "best in the world" in his position as he underlined his desire for the forward to agree fresh terms.

However, the 24-year-old's agent Moussa Sissoko this week told RMC Sport that he would not bow to "pressure" from Barca over his client's future. 

Sissoko also accused the club of making "threats of no longer playing in the side" rather than engaging in productive talks with Dembele.

That led to Xavi issuing an ultimatum on Wednesday when telling the former Dortmund attacker to either agree to the offer on the table or be sold in the January window.

And after he was left out of Barcelona's squad for Thursday's Copa del Rey last-16 tie with Athletic Bilbao, Alemany revealed time has now run out for Dembele.

"With Ousmane and his agents we started conversations around the month of July," Alemany told Barca TV.

Several offers

"In all this time, almost seven months, we have talked, Barca has made different offers, we have tried to find a way for the player to continue with us.

"Those offers have been continuously rejected by his agents. It seems obvious that the player does not want to continue at Barcelona and is not committed to our future project.

"We told him and his agents that he must leave the club immediately because we want to have players committed to the project.

"We expect a transfer to take place before 31 January. The sporting consequence is that we don't want to have players who don't want to be at Barca.

Dembele has played just six times in LaLiga this season and in just over half of Barca's league games since his arrival four-and-a-half years ago.

Dembele has reportedly drawn interest from a host of Premier League sides, including newly-rich Newcastle United, as well as Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Bayern Munich.

Dembele told to leave FC Barcelona 'immediately'