Barcelona have agreed terms with Borussia Dortmund for the transfer of attacker Ousmane Dembele, subject to the completion of his medical.
Barca will pay an initial fee of €105 million, and Dortmund confirmed that add-ons could see the fee rise by 40 percent — which means the deal is worth up to €147m.
France international Dembele, 20, arrives to fill the void left by Neymar’s €222 million departure to Paris Saint-Germain, who paid the Brazilian’s full release clause earlier this summer for the largest transfer fee in history.
Dembele’s deal will now be the second largest, and Barcelona said his five-year contract will have a significantly higher release clause of €400m.
Dortmund suspended Dembele indefinitely earlier this month after he missed training amid interest from Barcelona, but the Bundesliga club continued to insist that he would only be allowed to leave if the La Liga club met their demands.
The final breakthrough was made on Thursday when Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke and sporting director Michael Zorc met with Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, sporting executive Oscar Grau and director Raul Sanllehi during the Champions League draw in Monaco.
Barcelona then announced the deal on Twitter on Friday.
A Dortmund statement said a number of steps had to be done before Dembele could officially be considered a Barcelona player.
“The formal handling of the transfer is however still subject to the successful completion of the medical examination of the player at FCB, the player signing a termination agreement with BVB, an agreement on the player’s personal terms with FCB as well as the transfer being matched and authorised in accordance with the provisions of the FIFA Transfer Matching System (FIFA TMS) by Aug. 31st, 2017 (end of FIFA summer 2017 transfer window) at the latest.”
Last year, Dortmund saw off competition from clubs including Barcelona, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Bayern Munich to sign Dembele from Rennes for a reported €15m fee, so even before bonuses BVB have made back seven times the money they spent last summer.
However, German outlet Kicker has previously reported that Ligue 1’s Rennes will receive a windfall of €20m from any fee exceeding €80m.
Dembele scored 10 goals and provided 21 assists in the last season but had expressed disappointment at the departure of coach Thomas Tuchel. “Thomas has always been there for me and taught me a lot,” Dembele told Sky Germany in June. “He’s a very good coach with whom I had a lot of great moments.”
Tuchel primarily used Dembele on the wing but occasionally operated in a more central role to bring an element of surprise to Dortmund’s build-up play, carrying the ball into the final third and creating space.
