Ousmane Dembele trained with Barcelona on Saturday days after he was told by the club he should leave by the end of the January.
Dembele joined the La Liga giants from Borussia Dortmund in 2017 for €140 million but has yet to agree a new deal after a prolonged period of uncertainty. However, the Frenchman can leave for free when his contract expires in the summer.
It's a situation debt-ridden Barca are desperate to avoid and hope to get some returns on their investment in the current transfer window.
“With Ousmane and his agent we began conversations around July so it's been six months and a bit,” Barcelona director of football Mateu Alemany said earlier in the week.
“We've talked, we've talked, we've talked. Barca has made different offers. We've tried to find a way for the player to continue with us but these offers have been systematically rejected by his agents and today, January 20, eleven days before the last period of his contract ends, it seems obvious to us that the player does not want to continue at Barcelona and he is not committed to Barca's future project.
“In this scenario he and his agents have been informed that he must leave immediately because we want players committed to this project and therefore we hope that a transfer will take place before January 31.”
Barca will have to put recent struggles behind them when they face Alaves on Sunday as they continue to fight for a top four. Their hopes of winning a trophy this season were dealt two blows in a week after they followed up defeat by Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup with a shock loss to Athletic Bilbao on Thursday in the Copa del Rey.
