Borussia Dortmund reject Barcelona bid for AWOL Ousmane Dembele

Published on: 10 August 2017

The guys answer questions regarding Barca's transfer window, including whether or not Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele are a good fit. Julien Laurens evaluates Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho as possible replacements for Neymar at Barcelona. Shaka Hislop counters Aubameyang's statement about staying at Dortmund, saying he ended up 10th in queue for other clubs. Peter Bosz is pleased with Mario Gotze's preseason progress at Dortmund, but says the midfielder needs more match time. Bosz: Gotze needs game time to return to form

Borussia Dortmund have confirmed they have held talks with Barcelona about the transfer of Ousmane Dembele and rejected an offer, after the player went AWOL from training on Thursday.

In a statement released in line with their status as a company listed on the stock exchange, Dortmund "a meeting" took place about the possible transfer of Dembele to Barca and a bid was submitted that "did not correspond to the player's extraordinary footballing value and status as well as to the current economic market situation of the European transfer market. BVB therefore rejected this offer."

Dembele missed Dortmund training on Thursday, amid speculation that he is wanted by Barcelona, with BVB head coach Peter Bosz saying he was not aware of the player's whereabouts.

The 20-year-old is one of several options Barcelona are targeting following the sale of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain.

After joining his Dortmund teammates for the official team photo on Wednesday, Dembele went missing on Thursday.

Ahead of Dortmund's DFB Pokal first round match against Rielasingen on Saturday, Bosz told reporters at a news conference: "It's true, he wasn't there today and to be honest I don't know why.

"We tried to reach him, without any success. I hope that nothing bad has happened.

"I talked to Dembele yesterday. He told me he was in Paris with his friends. He did not say anything about a transfer."

It has been reported that Barcelona could spend up to €150 million to sign the France international, who joined Dortmund from Rennes for around €15m last summer.

Last season, Dembele was directly involved in 31 Dortmund goals in all competitions.

ESPN FC's Borussia Dortmund blogger Stefan Buczko contributed to this report.

Stephan Uersfeld is the Germany correspondent for ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @uersfeld.

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Source: espn.co.uk

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