Josep Maria Bartomeu: 'Ousmane Dembele is better than Neymar'

By Daniel Lewis, Senior Reporter | 07 March 2019

Bartomeu: 'Dembele is better than Neymar'

Ousmane Dembele is a superior player to Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar, in the view of Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu.

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has insisted that Ousmane Dembele is "better than Neymar", the player he replaced at Camp Nou.

The Catalan giants moved to bring in the France international from Borussia Dortmund for around £135m in August 2017, a few weeks after Neymar headed to Paris Saint-Germain in a record-breaking deal that still stands.

Dembele has not always lived up to his valuation at Camp Nou, not helped by a few niggling injury issues, but Bartomeu is happy with the investment.

"Dembele is, for me, better than Neymar," he told ESPN. "He's at Barca and he is better. We are really happy with him."

Asked to comment on rumours that Neymar could return to Barcelona one day, Bartomeu said: "I won't say yes or no. I will say that with the money [we received for Neymar], we invested in the future, on young players.

"With that money we went for players like Dembele and [Philippe] Coutinho."

Dembele has 11 goals and 10 assists from his 40 La Liga outings since joining Barca, 27 of those being starts.