FC Barcelona, just like most other clubs, prefer to do business in a way that includes installments and distributed payments. When it comes to player transfers, this is the norm by which the footballing world tends to work. However, it is also simultaneously true that Barcelona has struggled in recent seasons due to their finances.
Due to these troubled finances, the club has had many restrictions placed on them by Financial Fairplay. As a consequence of said restrictions, new signings have been limited and Barcelona has been primarily forced to tend to their pending payments first and foremost.
Over the last several years, La Blaugrana have signed many players and some of them have arrived with rather high transfer fees attached. One of those players was French winger Ousmane Dembele, who joined Barcelona in 2017 for a fee well above the €100 million mark.
The agreement that took place between Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund at the time meant that the Catalan giants would be paying off that amount across the next several years. Fortunately, it seems that Barcelona has now finally managed to complete all the installments that were pending.
According to the ever-reliable Fabrizio Romano, the pending installments have now been paid by FC Barcelona to the Bundesliga side to which Ousmane Dembele previously belonged to, and the total amount has added up to €148 million as per the source quoted by the Italian journalist.
While Dembele may no longer be at FC Barcelona anymore, as he transferred to French Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain in 2023 for around €50.4 million, paying off his installments was a crucial process for Barça to complete and finally get off their shoulders.
Furthermore, his time at the Catalan club is rarely remembered as being the most successful, despite the Frenchman having some memorable cameos. Ultimately, the move is not remembered fondly and the perception of Dembele from fans of Barcelona is hardly a positive one at this point.
Fortunately for Barcelona, the record-breaking talents of Lamine Yamal came into the picture right at the time when the club needed to replace the departing Frenchman. Ever since then, Barça have never looked back and continue to look towards the future ahead with their 17-year-old prodigy who recently got nominated for the Ballon d’Or.
