Despite being under extreme financial strain, Ousmane Dembele has been given a contract deadline by Barcelona president Joan Laporta.

With hefty contracts and exorbitant transfer fees paid out on a number of players, the Catalan giants’ debts have grown too large in recent times.

In order for the Spanish giants to manage the situation, many of these players have either departed the team or are certainly possible to do so eventually.

One of Barcelona’s solutions to their issues has been to sell a portion of the broadcast rights to raise money, but they have been unable to acquire new players.

Due to their excessive wage bill, Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen have all been excluded. This issue first surfaced after they acquired Ferran Torres from Manchester City in January.

Dembele, who at one stage appeared to have no future at the club, is a long-term transfer target for Chelsea and is already a free agent after his contract with Barca expired.

Laporta affirmed that he must accept Barcelona’s most recent contract offer because, if he doesn’t lower his salary and meet the club’s requirements, he will be let go.

“Dembele has an offer, they have answered and we continue talking. And We are willing to continue talking until we are interested. If he does not accept our proposal, it cannot be. He has to accept it because if not, there is no interest on our part. We have to adapt the files to the salary scale that we have marked so that there are no imbalances.” – He said.

Adding that;

“We don’t have a hurry in the market, but we know that we can’t let much time go by because maybe the players we are interested in will stop waiting“.

Laporta on Ousmane Dembélé: “If he wants to stay, he has to accept our final bid – otherwise he will leave. There’s no deadline”. 🚨🇫🇷 #FCB

“We want Ousmane to continue but now depends on him. He has not accepted current proposal but he’s open”.

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 6, 2022

𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕? 𝑷𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒙!