Madrid(Agencies): Barcelona
haven’t given up on Lionel Messi just yet. A day after the Argentine great told
the club he wants to leave, Barcelona said their restructuring project still
revolves around the player.
“We want to rebuild for the
future together with the best player in history,” Ramon Planes, the club’s
technical director, said today. “We are not contemplating any departure on a
contractual level because we want him to stay. We have to show a huge respect
for Messi.”
“We can’t make this a dispute
between Leo Messi and Barcelona because neither deserves it,” Planes said.
Barcelona are trying to avoid
an abrupt ending to Messi’s career at the club. His last match with a Barcelona
jersey was the embarrassing 8-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals of
the Champions League, one of the worst defeats in the player’s career and in
the club’s history. But Messi apparently has already made up his mind, and it
seems only a matter of how ugly the termination will get.
Messi’s first contract with
the club was signed on a napkin after a lunch between his representatives and
club officials nearly 20 years ago, but it was with a burofax — a certified
communication method commonly used in Spain, similar to a telegram — that Messi
told the club he wants to leave. There was no phone call or meeting with club
officials. Just the burofax. In it, Messi invoked a clause in his contract that
allowed him to leave for free after the end of the season.
But Barcelona said the clause
mentioned by Messi expired on June 10, meaning that the player missed the
deadline and would have to pay the clause of 700 million euros if he wants to leave
before his contract ends in June 2021. What Messi may contend is that the
clause was to expire at the end of the season, which this year was moved back
because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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