Dembélé takes a good swipe at Lyon and describes the appalling treatment of the players: It’s like being on a slave ship!

Former Olympique Lyon player Moussa Dembélé has spoken without mincing words about the former conditions at the French club. According to the 27-year-old striker, the treatment he received from the sporting director was appalling and he also took a good swipe at the former management, managers and fans.

Moussa Dembélé transferred to Lyon at the end of August 2018, when the French club scouted him at Celtic. The club sent €22 million to Scotland, so Dembélé moved to Ligue 1.

He spent roughly two and a half seasons there before moving on loan to Atlético Madrid in January 2021. However, he returned from there after six months and continued at Lyon until the summer of this year.

Just this summer, his contract at the French club expired and he left for Saudi Arabia as a free agent. Al-Ettifaq have expressed interest in his services and have signed Dembélé until the end of June 2025.

It must be added that Lyon is not in a good state at the moment and only remotely resembles the club that once ruled the whole of France. After six rounds, Lyon are in penultimate place in the Ligue 1 table, having accumulated only two points so far.

And it was the aforementioned Dembélé who spoke about the club’s situation just two months after his transfer.

I am not an asset, I am a person!

Dembélé deplores the behaviour of the rampaging fans and, in this sense, criticises the lack of competence of the coaches and managers to calm down their supporters.

“The worst are the insults from my own fans towards my family. Listening to 20,000 people insulting my mother and insulting me every time I touch the ball is unbearable,” said Dembélé, quoted by the well-known French daily L’Equipe.

“All the managers are incompetent and arrogant. No one has tried to calm the situation. They all hid and kept quiet, ” the 27-year-old forward explained.

In addition, he did not mince his words about former sporting director Bruno Cheyrou. He said he treated the players in an absolutely horrible way.

“I don’t know where I thought I was at the time, maybe on a slave ship or in a cotton field where people are taken for objects or numbers. I am not property, I am a man! You have to respect people,” says Dembélé, who certainly doesn’t mince words.

Finally, he goes on to describe how the sporting director Vincent Ponsot was also to blame, allegedly suggesting that the player turned down offers during the engagement so that he could leave for free.

“This added fuel to the fire and aroused even more hatred among the fans. He built up an image of ‘it’s not me, they’re all the bad guys’.” It made our daily life unbearable,” Dembélé concluded.

Source: Ligue 1, Mundo Deportivo, L’Equipe