Barcelona’s pursuit of PSG and Brazil star Neymar was made ‘impossible’ this summer due to Ousmane Dembele’s wage demands.
According the Independent, Neymar was very keen to seal a return to Spain from PSG this summer, with Barca themselves unwilling to fork out the £200M+ needed to land his signature.
The report notes that, therefore, in order to sign Neymar, Barca were going to have to include players in a deal, with Rakitic and Todibo agreeing to move to the French capital, however the same cannot be said for Dembele, with PSG unwilling to hand him the big deal he wanted in order to complete the move.
This meant that Neymar’s proposed move to the club ended up falling through, something that would’ve surely been a hard pill for the club to swallow.
Barca may be counting their lucky stars on this one when you consider that Dembele is considerably younger than Neymar, and could potentially have a higher ceiling than the Brazilian depending on how he progresses over the next few years.
The Frenchman’s time at the Nou Camp has been hampered by injury thus far, however Neymar hasn’t always been fit for PSG himself since his move to the French capital in the summer of 2017.
Dembele still has a lot to time to improve and prove his worth to Barca, something Neymar already did during his four-year stint at the Nou Camp.
Given that Barca would’ve had to get rid of three stars to sign Neymar, combined with the fact that the Brazilian is fairly injury prone and approaching 30, we think the Blaugrana may have been the beneficiaries this time.