5 controversial signings made by Barcelona in recent years

#2. Ousmane Dembele

Dembele went AWOL in an attempt to force a move to Barcelona

The Neymar transfer left Barcelona in a limbo and they were desperate to replace the superstar with high profile players. One of their main targets was Ousmane Dembele of Borussia Dortmund but the player only joined the German club a year ago and hence a potential transfer was sure to be difficult.

Barcelona’s intentions of signing Dembele was out in the open but Dortmund denied the player permission to speak to Catalan club. However, the player skipped training and traveled to Spain in the hope of sealing a move.

This didn’t go down well with Dortmund and they suspended the player indefinitely despite rejecting a €100 million offer.

Initially, Dortmund’s sporting director, Michael Zorc said Dembele won't be sold. Later they loosened their stance as they were not keen on keeping a player whose heart was no longer in the right place but they wanted to extract a huge fee for the player and they did just that by selling him to Barcelona for €105 million plus a reported €40 million add-ons.

Once the transfer was done, Dembele opened up on the incident.

"I decided to stop going training. I didn't want to go. I looked for an excuse not to go. If it didn't work out and I hadn't done my part to get the move to Barça, now I would be lamenting the fact I wasn't here. I was really nervous, although I could rest at night. I just wanted it to go through as quickly as possible.”