Barcelona have released a statement confirming they will not sign a new contract with Lionel Messi after serious problems emerged during today’s meeting.

Sportitalia were the first to break the story that the negotiations had not only slowed down, but crashed completely with no hope of a resolution.

It rapidly spread among the Spanish media and this evening Barca released a formal statement confirming they will not be signing a new contract with the Argentina international.

He was already out of contract, as his deal expired on June 30, but he had seemingly worked out the details for a new agreement with a 50 per cent pay cut.

However, the statement blames “Spanish La Liga regulations” for the fact they cannot formalise the contract.

“Given this situation, Lionel Messi will not continue with FC Barcelona. Both parties deeply regret that the wishes of both the player and the Club cannot be fulfilled.”

Now inevitably Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain will dive in for the free agent and repeat Ballon d’Or winner.

It is the end of an historic partnership for the player, who turned 34 in June, as he first moved to Spain for their youth academy in 2000 at the age of 13.

He has repeatedly thanked Barca for helping his progress, including with growth hormones for when he was diagnosed with a rare condition, and remained in their senior squad for 16 years.

Messi leaves Camp Nou after 778 games in all competition, having scored 672 goals and provided 305 assists.

6 thought on “Official: Messi leaves Barcelona”
  1. I understand Leonel Messi is one of the greatest footballers of all time, but how this post is related to Italian football and serie-a?

  2. There seem to be contracts, obligations, clauses and factors at play in elite football, with the average fan completely oblivious to all of it. The first question is: Is Messi employed by Barcelona or Barcelona and La liga? The second question is: Is Messi taking the reported 50% pay cut to the detriment of the earnings of La Liga, and hence why they’ve somehow vetoed it? Because they”ll be earning less? Or this is a game of chess played by Barcelona to get La liga to make some much needed changes?

    Nothing about these developments seem to make much sense. Their greatest player leaves, and they’ve barely been able / bothered to put together 3 paragraphs on their website when making the announcement. Also. If the player has indeed wanted to agree to the contract extension, why hasn’t he come out to show his annoyance at the barriers that are apparently in the way? None of this makes any sense.

  3. Thinking about it some more, there can only be one plausible reason for la liga vetoing the extension. That even if messi takes a 50 percent pay cut, it still would worsen Barcelona’s financial situation. That even pay half the salary didn’t convince la liga that Barcelona could sustainable and not face liquidation of some sort.

  4. @Elver.
    1. Serie A is a global league, with a global audience,
    2. Messi comes from a country with historical ties to Italy,
    3. Messi is of Italian descent,
    4, In Juventus, there is realistically one Italian club who could afford him, even if unlikely, given that there wouldn’t be a transfer fee involved
    5. This is not match of the day with a bunch of narrow minded and inward looking pundits thinking the world revolves around just its league.

  5. Rosario.
    All your described clauses 1-5 are indirect relations to Italian football.
    E.g. Buffon ends his career at Juventus and goes to Parma, does this news have to be posted at the premier league news channel? I think no, but this post have basically the same meaning.

  6. @Elver. It is a player who will potentially be a free agent. If Juventus can afford a transfer fee and wages to sign Messi, you’d think they’d also be interested in Messi. If you don’t think it’s relevant to serie a, then maybe don’t read / acknowledge the article? Not that difficult.

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