Path clear to sign a forward after Barça confirm Dembele absence
Dembele will be out for half a year and the club will look to sign a replacement
Barcelona confirmed on Tuesday that Ousmane Dembele will be out for six months after undergoing surgery on a ruptured tendon in Finland. The length of the Frenchman's absence (longer than five months) is an essential step in them going into the transfer market to sign another forward.
As Dembele will be out for so long, the clib will transmit the necessary paperwork to La Liga to enable them to make a signing outside of the transfer window as an 'emergency' replacement. New coach Quique Setien has been left short in attack, with luis Suarez also sidelined for several months.
With the confirmation of Dembele's downtime, Barça have 20 working days to present a report to La Liga. From there, a medical tribunal will decide whether they can sign and must respond within 72 hours. It will be then when Barça will have to execute the work they have been working on for several weeks. They will have 15 days to close a deal. However, they don't plan to wait that long, given the need to add a body to the squad. It must be someone without a team or already registered in Spain.
Barça B will pass through the same process. Hiroki Abe, the Japanese forward, was also in Finland with Dembele for an operation on a similar problem. He will be out for five months and the club also hope to be able to sign someone to strengthen Garcia Pimienta's squad for the run-in.
