FC Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain have reportedly made a surprise pact amid the Ousmane Dembele transfer saga.
It is no secret that PSG have a fractured relationship with two of Spain's biggest teams, with their differences with both Real Madrid and Barca being well documented.
Read: Neymar 'offers' himself to European giants
While Kylian Mbappe at the centre of their poor relationship with Los Blancos, the French giants' poor relations with Barca seemingly dates back much further, although Dembele's imminent switch to Paris has awakened tensions between the two sides.
The winger looks set to become a PSG player after his €50 million (R1 billion) release clause was triggered earlier this month, with the France international said to have agreed to the transfer before a formal bid was submitted.
This unsurprisingly incensed Barca, especially as Dembele an important player for manager Xavi Hernandez, who admitted his disappointment at his expected exit.
However, according to Football Espana, the conflict between the Catalan outfit and the Ligue 1 champions began in 2017 when the former pursued the latter's Marco Verratti but ended up losing Neymar in that same window for a world-record fee of €222 million (R4.5 billion).
After that, Barcelona president Joan Laporta and PSG chief Nasser Al-Khelaifi went to battle on a number of issues over the years since, with the Dembele saga the latest reason behind their clash of heads.
According to Spanish out SPORT, though, the two clubs have now made a promise to not pursue any of each other's players going forward, described as a "non-aggression" pact.
This is believed to have been aided by the fact that new Blaugrana sporting director Deco and PSG sporting advisor Luis Campos are good friends.
In 2021, Verratti's former agent Donato Di Campli revealed more about the Italian's desire to join Barca from the French giants back in 2017.
He told French newspaper L'Equipe: "When Barca contacted me, I asked Marco what we're doing. He told me to talk with them, and that we would also talk with PSG since an extension was in the pipeline. PSG was not great at the time, so I said to Marco, 'Are we going or are we staying?'."He said 'OK, let's try another experiment.' Marco really wanted to go to Barcelona. He texted Nasser to tell him, I kept it. They were offering a lot of money, but it wasn't even that.
"Playing with [Lionel] Messi, becoming a champion, which is a different thing to being a great player. PSG are one of the biggest clubs in the world, but they play in a weak league. I told Marco that if he wanted to become a champion, he had to change tune."
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