A former FC Barcelona director admitted in an interview with SPORT that the club mistreated Champions League finalist Ousmane Dembele.
Dembele was bought by Barca from Borussia Dortmund in 2017, with then-president Josep Bartomeu reportedly using €105 million of the €222 million Paris Saint-Germain paid for Neymar while also agreeing to shell out a further €40 million in add-ons.
For a good five years or so, Barca was unable to get the best of the undoubtedly talented, ambidextrous forward.
That was until club legend Xavi Hernandez assumed responsibilities as head coach, however, and took the World Cup winner to one side.
With special treatment, the midfield icon turned Dembele into one of the best widemen in the world, but he had his head turned by his agent and PSG, who utilized a clause in Dembele’s Barca contract and paid a relatively paltry €50.4 million for his services in 2023.
PSG manager Luis Enrique has continued Xavi’s fine work with the 28-year-old, and converted him into a more centrally-playing Ballon d’Or candidate.
On the brink of them taking on Barca’s semifinal foes Inter Milan in the decider in Munich this weekend, former Blaugrana player and director Robert Fernandez shed light on why the Catalans weren’t able to do better with the Frenchman.
Pointing out that France Football could give the Ballon d’Or to Dembele and not Lamine Yamal if the former goes all the way at the Allianz Arena, Fernandez said that “with Ousmane we didn’t have the patience we needed”.
“But no one. Neither you, the press, nor us. Honestly, I think we mistreated this player a lot. Unfortunately, I have to put it this way. He didn’t understand many things. He came very young and you can see that we loved him even two years before. He had extraordinary conditions,” Fernandez stated.
FC Barcelona wasn’t patient enough with Dembele
“There was no patience and above all he had two injuries. And it’s a contradiction, because they told me personally that he wasn’t very professional and that wasn’t true,” Fernandez continued.
“He was a magnificent professional. He didn’t drink and they said he drank. They said that he was leading a bad life and it was a lie. It hurt him a lot, I think it unbalanced him. He’s a guy with a lot of personality, because after what happened, he was able to succeed at Barca. His end [at the club] was good, with Xavi’s support.”
With the teenage prodigy taking his right wing berth, however, we mustn’t ignore the fact that Lamine Yamal’s rise to the elite in FC Barcelona’s colors might not have been so quick had Dembele not departed when he did.
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