Barcelona president claims Dembele is better than Neymar as he rules out return for the Brazilian
Josep Maria Bartomeu revealed the club have a 'project' with Dembele and fellow big-money flop Philippe Coutinho
BARCELONA president Josep Maria Bartomeu has bizarrely claimed Ousmane Dembele is better than Neymar - and ruled out a sensational return for the Brazilian.
The Barca chief insisted the club have a "project" going with Dembele and fellow big-money flop Philippe Coutinho.
Dembele joined the Nou Camp giants from Borussia Dortmund in 2017 for a whopping £138m - replacing Neymar who'd just joined Paris Saint-Germain for £198m.
Meanwhile, Coutinho quit Liverpool for Barcelona in January 2018 for £145m, but both stars have failed to shine in Spain.
Despite that, Bartomeu reckons they are the future of the club - while incredibly claiming Dembele is a better player than Neymar.
Bartomeu claimed: "It's not possible for Neymar to come to Barcelona.
"BETTER THAN NEYMAR"
"We have another sporting project with Dembele and Philippe Coutinho. We are happy with what we have.
"Dembele is a good professional player. He is a young guy who arrived at a huge club and that's not easy.
"But he has adapted and he is much better than Neymar."
While Dembele has hardly set the world alight at Barca, he has shown encouraging signs of improvement lately, with 14 goals and eight assists in 36 games this term.
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PSG forward Neymar has been linked with Barcelona all season, with the French club in dire need of balancing the books to avoid being in breach of FFP regulations.
That means the Ligue 1 giants will almost certainly need to sell one of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
Given the Frenchman's age, it's likely PSG opt to keep him on as the future and look to recoup what they can of the world-record £198 they spent on Neymar.
