Ousmane Dembele: Dortmund striker suspended for going AWOL as Barcelona bid is thrown out
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Updated 10/08/2017 at 15:45 GMT
Borussia Dortmund have rejected a Barcelona bid for unsettled France forward Ousmane Dembele, the Bundesliga club have said.
Ousmane Dembele
Image credit: Getty Images
Dortmund manager Peter Bosz had earlier revealed that Dembele was AWOL from training at the club on Thursday amid speculation that he was flying to Barcelona to complete his transfer.
He has since been suspended and fined by Dortmund for missing training with Dortmund confirming they had rejected a Barca bid for the player because it "did not correspond to the player’s extraordinary abilities".
In a statement to the stock exchange, Borussia Dortmund released the following statement.
Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA ("BVB") has held a talk with the Catalan football club FC Barcelona regarding the possible transfer of the BVB player Ousmane Dembélé ("player") to FC Barcelona. During this meeting, the representatives of FC Barcelona submitted a bid which did not correspond to the player's extraordinary footballing and other status and not to the present economic market situation of the European transfer market. BVB therefore rejected this offer. As there is no other offer from FC Barcelona to date, there is currently no transfer of the player to FC Barcelona and this is not currently likely.
Dembele's asking price has been set at around £90m plus with Barcelona already having a £90m bid for Philippe Coutinho rejected by Liverpool on Wednesday.
"Ousmane Dembélé has missed the BVB-training today and has obviously decided to take this step. We will of course sanctify this misconduct," said director of football Michael Zorc.
The Liga club have money to spend after selling Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain for a world record fee of £200m.
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Ousmane Dembélé (Dortmund)
Image credit: Eurosport
Bosz told reporters: "Ousmane Dembele was not in training today. We do not know why. We tried to reach him but we did not."
He added that the much sought-after midfielder had spoken to him on Wednesday and told him he was in Paris.
He is quoted as having said: "There was no sign yesterday that Ousmane Dembele would not be here today. We hope nothing terrible has happened."
Dembele has been linked with a number of other clubs in recent weeks, with many expecting a move to Barcelona as a replacement for Neymar.
The 20-year-old scored 10 goals last season and made 21 assists in Dortmund's campaign-winning season.
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