Highly-rated French forward Ousmane Dembele, heavily linked with a move to Premier League side Liverpool this summer, signed up for Borussia Dortmund on Thursday. This is the second instance this week where a Premier League club has lost out to a Bundesliga team in signing players.
Manchester United targets Renato Sanches and Mats Hummels signed for Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich on Tuesday.
Dembele, the 18-year-old forward who is yet to make his senior team debut for France, also had a talk with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp over the phone, according to the Guardian, and it is believed that Dembele was even impressed with the Reds' plans for next season. However, nothing materialised thereafter.
Dembele signed up for Dortmund from Rennes on a five-year deal for an undisclosed fee. It was reported earlier that the French club had asked for €35 million (£27.6 million) from the Reds, so the fee paid by Dortmund should be around this figure.
Dembele, who can play on either side of the wing, scored 12 times and assisted five goals from 25 appearances in the French league this season.
"BVB showed a lot of interest in me right from an early stage and they have always kept close contact with me – this really impressed me," the 18-year-old told Dortmund's website. "I am totally convinced of the Borussia sporting concept.
"I can hardly wait to play in the Bundesliga in front of more than 80,000 spectators in the Signal Iduna Park and to walk onto the pitch in the Champions League with my new team mates."
