FC Barcelona Rule Out Kounde Signing And State He Has Signed For Chelsea

FC Barcelona have ruled out the transfer of Jules Kounde from Sevilla and believe that he has already signed for Chelsea.

The French defender is one of Xavi Hernandez’s few remaining targets in the current window after the Blaugrana managed to land Raphinha from Leeds United and Robert Lewandowski from Bayern Munich last week.

Along with Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva, Kounde is one of two names atop of the Catalans’ shortlist, and the activation of the second economic lever worth over $400mn and officially announced on Friday morning gave hope that pursuits for both players might not be far around the corner.

As revealed by Relevo, however, president Joan Laporta ruled out an approach for Kounde once asked by a young fan if the club was going to sign him when the Barca delegation landed in Las Vegas ahead of the next friendly on their preseason tour against bitter rivals Real Madrid on Sunday.

“No, not Kounde,” Laporta answered. “Chelsea have signed him,” he added.

This development comes after Kounde deciding to head to Portugal with Sevilla for their own preseason commitments was taken as the France international holding out for Barca to make an approach for him as previously seen with Raphinha when Chelsea also made an official offer for the Brazilian that was accepted by then-club Leeds United.

Barca are understood to have told Kounde and his camp to wait for them, and they will look to come as close as possible to matching the PremierPINC
League giants’ offer for him believed to hang in the region of £55mn ($66mn).

Where Barca definitely can’t compete with the west Londoners is on pay, with Kounde said to have been offered something like €12mn per year.

As seen with Ousmane Dembele, Barca would be willing to offer him around half of that at around €6-7mn, which is what the likes of Ansu Fati and Pedri take home.

Though there might still be some hope of Barca pulling off the coup, Kounde himself needs to choose whether he wants to take the more economically attractive package or a sporting project being constructed by Xavi.