Barcelona is disappointed by the circumstance with forward Ousmane Dembele, who probably won’t play for the club again this season, president Joan Laporta said on Wednesday.
“We are disappointed,” Laporta told a news conference called for the revealing of new Barcelona signing Adama Traore.
“We have a player (Dembele) with a contract that expires in August and the player is available to the coach, so the coach is the one that will decide if he plays or not,” Laporta said.
“But coach Xavi Hernandez is just as surprised as all of us that Dembele did not renew his contract.”
The French forward joined Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund in 2017 and will be a free agent at the end of this season.
“Our offer expired on December 20 and after that there was no other proposal,” Laporta said, answering questions about Dembele as he sat next to Traore.
“We saw a lack of interest to renew and accept our offer that was a really good one. We tried to work it out but there were no options available.”
“We invested a lot of money and we wanted to see that investment on the pitch more often, but we came up from that a little disappointed,” Laporta said.
“The coach will decide, but he needs to think about next season, not only this one.”