Official: Dembele, until 2024: “Now yes, Força Barça”

• Dembele ends the soap opera by signing a short contract, for two seasons, which will make speculation about his future return soon.

“ Now yes, Força Barça ”. Erasing 2022 from a blackboard and writing 2024, the new end date of his contract, Ousmane Dembele and the Barcelona club announced a renewal that had been brewing for weeks and that was only a matter of the official statement from Barcelona. Dembele had already been in the locker room on his return from vacation because the negotiations with the club had come to fruition.

Dembele, therefore, extends his relationship with Barcelona. According to some sources, he does it by lowering 40% of his salary. According to others, if he signs a good season and fulfills different variables, he could get to earn the same as until now. What is certain is that with Dembele the speculations will return soon, because that short contract, of just two seasons, will force them to face a new negotiation from next June. That is if Barcelona and the player do not consider a transfer.

For now, all’s well that ends well for Xavi, surely one of the great winners of the negotiation because he was the one who urged the club for the Frenchman to return to the discipline of the squad when he was removed just before the trip to Bilbao to play the eighth of the Copa del Rey against Athletic. “Well managed, he can be the best player in the world in his position”, said Xavi in ​​his presentation. And it cannot be said that he has not taken advantage of it. While he has been under his command, Dembele has become the best assistant in LaLiga. The last half of his fifth season at Barcelona has been the only one in which the player has shown those virtues that made him, before the arrival of Coutinho, the most expensive transfer in the history of the Barcelona club, which paid 105 million plus variables to Borussia Dortmund.

Attacked by very serious injuries and stuck by his problems understanding the game, Dembele did not give his best for four years and seemed like a hopeless case in Barcelona. His last half year, and the confidence of Xavi, with whom he has felt more comfortable than with any coach, give him a new opportunity at Barcelona, where he has the challenge of becoming a player with unbalanced continuity. Of course, he is going to have serious competition with Raphinha and Ferran Torres for a starting position in the field.

The great loser of the negotiation, apparently, is Moussa Sissoko, his agent, who put off the club’s offer for months and who, finally, and at the player’s request, gave the green light to the renewal until 2024. With a value of 30 million euros for the specialized website Transfermarkt, very far from the 120 in which he was appraised, Dembele signs a new contract just now that he has played 150 games for Barcelona, with which he has scored 32 goals and has given 34 assists. He has a fantastic challenge in this 2022-23 academic year in which he also dreams of being on the world champion’s list to play in Qatar.