Barcelona star puts transfer decision on hold to wait for Chelsea offer

The 25-year-old is out of contract with Barca this summer, allowing him to leave Camp Nou as a free agent.

Chelsea, meanwhile, have been unable to offer any new contracts to players due to the restrictions on the club following Roman Abramovich’s sanction in March.

But now that the Todd Boehly/Clearlake consortium officially completed its takeover this week, Chelsea are now free to sign players.

Dembele has held talks with Barcelona over a new contract, but according to PA news agency, the French winger has been waiting on Chelsea’s ownership situation to be resolved before making a decision over his future.

And Chelsea could also have an advantage during negotiations as Thomas Tuchel already has a positive relationship with Dembele from their time together at Borussia Dortmund.

‘He’s a very good player, and I am very fortunate to have trained him in my time at Dortmund,’ Tuchel said of Dembele earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Barcelona president Joan Laporta revealed last week that Dembele has been set a deadline to decide whether he will sign a new contract with the club.

‘He has our proposal and a date to decide, because there is no more room [to improve the offer],’ Laporta said.

‘We have been preparing for next season for some time and it is an issue that we are stuck, because the agent does not respond to our offer. It looks like they are making a counter-proposal.

‘There is a priority right now, which is to get our finances back on track. There are a lot of players that we are speaking with and operations that are pending, but La Liga is not helping us. The criteria is very restrictive.’

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