Leo Messi (34 years old) no longer has a contract with him FC Barcelona. Despite the efforts of the Barça leadership, led by Joan Laporta, to close an agreement with the crack before his link with the culé entity expired, finally the negotiations did not crystallize in an official agreement for the renewal before Leo finished his contract and today he is free.
Club sources admitted that it is an unwanted situation and more so considering that the president and the board consider the renewal of Messi at the sports, commercial and institutional level. Laporta based part of his campaign on the promise that he would do everything possible to renew the Argentine and played the card of his relationship with Leo as the guarantee that the options for him to renew were much greater with him as president than with Victor font or Toni Freixa.
However, not even that good relationship Laporta with Messi and his father, George, nor the good harmony admitted by the two parties that presides over the talks for the renewal have been enough so that before July 1, the day that Leo is already without a contract, an uninterrupted bond with the club that dates from 8 January 2001. In any case, Laporta, when asked at the gates of the club for the renovation of Messi yesterday morning he wanted to temper the spirits. “Easy, easy,” he told reporters before entering the offices.
The Barcelona entity ensures that there is a basis for agreement between the president and the Messi for what Leo He signed a two-year contract as a Barça player plus another three as ambassador for the club – coinciding with his presumed departure to MLS -, never for ten years. However, it is admitted that there is not yet a formal agreement when it comes to crystallizing what has been discussed in the contracts because the lawyers and prosecutors of both parties have entered everything is being scrutinized and the process is taking longer than what is desired by the culé entity.
In this sense, from the Barça It is recognized that an agreement has yet to be reached regarding payments to Messi (its periodification during the new contract) and on taxation, something normal since the crack does not want to have more problems with the Treasury after the process that led him to the bench and a conviction in 2017.
The boundary of Thebes
In addition, from the Barcelona entity it is admitted that it is also necessary to adapt the new contract of Messi to the salary reality of Barcelona, which has to reduce this concept a lot as it recently made clear Javier Thebes, president of LaLiga. “If Barcelona wants to bring in a player who costs him 25 million per season in salary, he must leave either by transfer or by salary reduction to 100 million,” said the head of the Spanish football association.
From the club it is considered that Thebes will have to end up being somewhat more lax and not as strict as it appears in his statements because, after all, having Messi in the ranks of FC Barcelona is to give LaLiga a lot of cache and greatly increase its value as a television product that must be marketed throughout the world. The employer’s leader, however, has already clarified that LaLiga’s salary limits cannot be skipped by anyone.
At Barça They do not want to set deadlines for when the long-awaited signature of Leo, although in the short term (today and tomorrow) it is not expected. As of Saturday they no longer want to make forecasts precisely because everything is in the hands of those who are negotiating the aforementioned economic sections. From the club, there is no real danger that Leo will not renew but he does admit unease and discomfort to see how he is left without a contract. In any case, it is clarified that the figure of Messi It will continue today on the club’s website, in the stadium and in the Botiga, and that if someone wants to personalize a shirt with their name, they can do so. There is the conviction that Laporta, sooner rather than later, he will get away with it.
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