Ousmane Dembélé celebrates his goal against Real Madrid during a friendly match played in Texas on July 29, 2023. SAM HODDE / AFP
A French world champion on the start, another approaching. Two clauses present in the contracts of Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé – which expire this Monday, July 31 at 11:59 p.m. – must move the lines of the Paris Saint-Germain transfer market. On the one hand, the capital club hopes to be able to attract Dembélé, for an amount of 50 million euros. On the other, PSG intends to push Mbappé towards the exit, who says he is ready to stay in Paris until June 2024.
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If PSG manages to convince Dembélé, he would hold his ninth recruit of the summer, perhaps the most unexpected. Paris’ interest in the FC Barcelona winger has surfaced in recent days as July 31 approaches when the release clause in Dembélé’s contract expires. This amounts to 50 million euros, an affordable amount for a 26-year-old player bought 135 million euros by Barça in 2017 and still valued at 60 million euros by the specialized site Transfermarkt.
If this clause is activated, PSG will have a few days to complete the transfer. It will then be necessary to convince the French international, whose contract with Barcelona runs until 2024. Currently in the United States with the blaugrana group for the preparation of the season, the winger scored a nice goal on Saturday, during a friendly match against Real Madrid (3-0), in Arlington (Texas).
A performance that finally convinced Xavi, his coach: “I’ve said many times before that, for me, he has the potential to be the best in the world in his position. I said it during my presentation and I repeat it today: it is essential for me. » Dembélé’s departure would also come as a surprise to Barcelona, where management were optimistic about his extension until recently.
Often difficult negotiations
“I think he’s delighted at Barca and wants to stay. We are in talks for a multi-year contract (…). He is not going to activate the clause signed last summer”assured Joan Laporta in an interview with the Sports world, July 12. In this same interview, the president of FC Barcelona specified that the representatives of Dembélé were “hard in business“.
Negotiations between the Frenchman and the Catalan club have often been difficult, which could benefit Paris. In January 2022, as the player’s extension dragged on, Mateu Alemany, Barça’s sporting director, announced that Dembélé had to “leave as soon as possible”. The latter finally stayed and had a good second half of the season, before extending, during July, until 2024.
It is in this new contract that the release clause of 50 million euros that PSG would like to activate has been integrated. During the long negotiations between Barcelona and the Dembélé clan, the latter had obtained half of this compensation if the clause were to be activated. In return, the player and his representatives had not received a commission from the Catalan club, in great financial difficulty.
If the French winger is signed, PSG would recruit a second tricolor world champion this summer, after the arrival of Lucas Hernandez from Bayern Munich. The capital club would above all consolidate its offensive sector – already reinforced by the signings of Marco Asensio and Kang-in Lee – which could be orphaned by Kylian Mbappé by the end of the transfer window.
Real does not show up
This is the other side of this decisive day for Paris: the clause integrated into the contract of the captain of the Blues, which should allow him to extend his lease for one year, until 2025, expires on Monday. And the attacker has a priori no intention of activating it. This is what he had made known in a letter sent to his club in June. Mbappé wants to stay in Paris next season, before leaving at the end of his contract, June 30, 2024.
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An unacceptable outcome for the Parisian leaders, who do not want to let a player of Mbappé’s pedigree go free to a competitor in a year. “If Kylian wants to stay, we want him to stay. But he has to sign a new contract (…). If he doesn’t want to sign, the door is open.”, declared Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, on July 5, the day of the presentation of Luis Enrique. Currently in Japan on a preparatory tour, the new coach must do without Mbappé, who trains in Poissy (Yvelines) in a “loft” where the other undesirable PSG players are.
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Determined to sell their player, the Parisian management deemed acceptable an initial offer of 300 million euros from Al-Nassr. But the Saudi club failed to convince Kylian Mbappé to join him. Few are the suitors to have the financial surface capable of welcoming the French striker. The favorite remains Real Madrid, who have little interest in showing up for the moment.
A source close to the management of PSG told AFP on Sunday that the club is “certain that Real Madrid will make an offer, but at the very last moment, and a very low offer, bordering on insulting. It will be a pretext, to say that they will have tried and that the PSG will have blocked the affair by greed.. During the summer of 2021, Real Madrid had offered 180 million euros to Paris for Mbappé, who already had only one year left on his contract.
The French champion club had refused, before obtaining Mbappé’s extension in May 2022. Technically, PSG and the player could enter a new phase of negotiations for an extension, from August 1. But the showdown started a few weeks ago seems to have made the two parties irreconcilable. While waiting for something new in the Mbappé file, the PSG hopes to complete the Dembélé file.