Barcelona face tug-of-war with PSG over 'new Mbappe' Ousmane Dembele

Four and half years after Ousmane Dembele became the most expensive purchase in Barcelona’s history, the club’s president Joan Laporta declared the winger “better than Mbappe”.

Laporta – who had not been in charge when Dembele, then 20, joined for an initial €117 million from Borussia Dortmund – smiled at his audience of reporters as he made the remark.

He knew, speaking in early December 2021, he was making a big claim and the statement masked a long, complicated relationship between Barca and a player whose great potential had too often been very far from his day-to-day reality.

The Dembele-Barca saga has never run smoothly for long, and its latest sharp twists and turns were being played out on Monday between the US, where Barca are on a pre-season tour, the club’s Catalonia offices, and Paris, where the names Kylian Mbappe and Dembele were being bracketed together again, this time by Paris Saint-Germain as the French club contemplated the exit of their own restless superstar.

For PSG, the recruitment of Dembele, 26, represents one way of soothing the likely departure of Mbappe.

Deadlines with heavy financial implications defined a hectic day of negotiations, July 31 being the last day of a period specified in Dembele’s Barcelona contract during which his buyout clause is set at €50 million – it would double as of August – and at the same time the deadline set in Mbappe’s contract for triggering a year’s extension to his current deal with PSG, one that expires in 2024.

Mbappe has made his intention not to extend very plain, leaving PSG facing the prospect of losing him for free next year unless they can sell him to a club he wishes to join – Real Madrid are by far the leading candidate – this summer.

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