After 18 Years Of Service, Messi Leaves Barcelona; Arsenal, PSG, Man City On His Radar
There has been a radical turnaround in the case of Lionel Messi’s renewal with Barcelona, with recent information being that the deal was close to being announced, yet Los Cules have announced the player is to leave the club he joined way back in 2003.
The reality is that several levels of the club were aware of the situation and spent the majority of Thursday afternoon exploring how best to communicate the result of conversations held at a lunch meeting earlier in the day.
These conversations took place between the club and Messi’s representatives, but the take-home point that whilst the meeting was cordial, Messi was going to play his football elsewhere from the 2021/22 season.
Barcelona’s outlook now changes radically with the urgency to reduce their salary bill somewhat lower.
Being able to plan for the 2022/23 season becomes child-play compared to dealing with the fallout of losing Messi, especially after Laporta essentially ran for election on a platform of keeping the club icon in Barcelona.
LaLiga Santander’s fiscal agreement with the CVC investment fund was said to have made things easier for Barcelona, but even then the room to manoeuvre was limited as Los Cules had to balance their wage-bill, which would have left Ronald Koeman with a very threadbare squad going into the new season.
Furthermore, accepting the pay out from the investment fund would have meant Barcelona saying a final goodbye to the Super League, which the club were unprepared to do, leaving us with a situation whereby Barcelona extending Messi’s contract and moving forward with the Super League plans was an impossible scenario.
This has led to both parties agreeing that the best thing to do is go in separate directions, especially with the Blaugrana facing challenges in selling a number of players this summer, most notably Coutinho, Samuel Umtiti, Antoine Griezmann and Miralem Pjanic.
Messi now will turn his focus to picking a new destination, something he has never before had to do as a professional, although common sense suggests that Paris Saint-Germain may be the early favourites to secure his signature, Arsenal and Manchester City are also on his radar.
