We were all caught by surprise this evening with reports from Spain saying Manchester United are close to signing Ousmane Dembele from Barcelona.
The news was broke by AS, who said the Camp Nou side would accept an offer of between €50m and €60m for the Frenchman.
And for those who didn’t believe the Barça news coming from the Madrid media, even though it was from a journalist based in Barcelona, there are now some updates coming straight from the Catalan media.
It started with Mundo Deportivo journalist Francesc Aguilar on Twitter. He began by claiming that Dembele’s entourage confirmed to him the news brought by AS regarding the move.
He says Barcelona initially rejected the deal, but the economic needs and the approval from Ronald Koeman ended up changing things. It’s said the operation would be done for €75m, although he doesn’t know how much will be paid initially and how much in bonuses.
He adds that Manchester United contacted Barça for Dembele following the refusal they had over their offer for Jadon Sancho.
That seems to make sense, since the German media has just broke the news claiming the Red Devils’ first bid was turned down by Borussia Dortmund.
Francesc Aguilar has now returned with a further update, saying it was Ed Woodward who contacted Dembele’s entourage and Barcelona. He explains they’ve been trying to convince the player for a while, and ‘in the end they succeeded’.
