RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Lionel Messi confirmed on Friday, September 4th, that he will remain with Barcelona. “I would never go to court against the club of my life, so I will stay,” said the player in an interview with Goal.com. It has been a surreal two weeks for the Argentinean star. He asked to leave Barcelona, called Pep Guardiola to say he would like to play in Manchester City, sent two official messages to Barça, did not attend training and finally decided to keep his contract with the club, which expires in 2021.
But, just as it happened in 2014 and 2016, Messi will remain at Camp Nou. However, this time he left the Barcelona fans apprehensive as never before, after trying to leave and being determined to do so, but not being able to leave unless the matter ended up in a legal imbroglio.
Messi believed that a clause in his contract would allow him to leave for free later this year and announced it to the club in an official document. But Barcelona considered that the player should have made this choice before June 10th, as guaranteed in the contract signed in 2017, and consequently, in order to leave, he would have to pay the fine of EUR 700 million (R$ 4.4 billion) provided in the clause.
Messi argued that he could be free to leave from August 23rd without paying the fine, when the Champions League final closed the season. This contractual war, a legal mess to which no purchasing club wanted to expose itself, eventually led the Argentinean to remain at Camp Nou.
“We were sure that I was free. The president always said that at the end of the season I could decide whether or not to stay, and now they cling to the fact that I didn’t say that before June 10th, and on June 10th we were competing for the League amidst this virus shit and this disease that changed all the dates. And that’s why I’m going to remain in the club. Now I’m going to stay in the club because the president told me that the only way out would be to pay the EUR 700 million clause, which is impossible, and then there was another way, which was to go to court.”
“I would never go to court against Barça because it is the club that I love, that has given me everything since I came here, it is the club of my life, I made my life here, Barça gave me everything and I gave it everything, it never crossed my mind to take Barça to court,” explained the captain of Barcelona.
After the apocalyptic defeat against Bayern Munich (2×8) in the Champions League, the team captain told his fellow members about his decision to leave Barcelona. And he took refuge in silence. Until last Friday. “I was in bad spirits, I didn’t feel like doing anything. I wanted time to pass and then clarify everything,” said the Argentine. And he detailed: “I told the club, particularly the president, that I wanted to leave. I’ve been telling him this all year. I believed it was time to leave. I believed that the club needed younger people, new people, and I thought that my stage in Barcelona was over.”
“It was a very difficult year, I suffered a lot in training, in games and in the dressing room. Everything became very difficult for me and there came a time when I thought about seeking new goals, new places. It was not because of the result against Bayern in the Champions League, I had been thinking about this decision for some time. I said this to the president, and the president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I wanted to go or if I wanted to stay, and in the end he didn’t keep his word.”
Messi, who said in the interview that he felt uncomfortable all year, had started negotiating a new contract until 2023. The negotiations were paralyzed in July. After the defeat in Lisbon, the club dismissed its Spanish manager Quique Setién and Messi agreed to meet with Ronald Koeman, Setién’s successor. At the meeting, the Dutch coach explained him his project and told him that he would dismiss Luis Suárez, Arturo Vidal, Rakitic and Umtiti.
But Messi’s mind had already been made up. Three days later, Messi sent, by a Spanish urgent delivery service and document certificate called Burofax, an official document notifying the club that he would use the clause in his contract that allowed him to leave Barça at the end of the 2019-2020 season without paying the EUR 700 million fine. However, the club considered that this term had expired on June 10th, while Messi maintained that he would continue until August 23rd, when the season ended.
“Sending a Burofax was to make it official that I wanted to leave and that I was free, that I wouldn’t use the optional year and wanted to leave. It was not to create trouble, nor to go against the club, but the way to make everything official, because my decision had been made,” clarified Messi. “What they say is that I didn’t say this before June 10th, but I repeat, we were in the middle of all competitions and it wasn’t the time. Besides, the president always told me: ‘When the season is over, you will decide if you stay or go’. He never set a date, I was simply officially announcing to the club that I wouldn’t remain, but it wasn’t meant to get into a fight, because I didn’t want to fight with the club.”
The captain of Barcelona is now at the disposal of new coach Ronald Koeman, after he refused to undergo the coronavirus tests and did not attend the trainings, which began Monday. “I will continue in Barça and my attitude will not change, no matter how much I wanted to leave. I’ll give it my best. I always want to win, I’m competitive and I don’t like to lose anything. I always want the best for the club, for the changing room and for myself. I said we couldn’t win the Champions. Now I don’t know what will happen. There is a new manager and a new concept. That’s good, but then we’ll have to see how the team reacts and whether or not we can compete. What I can say is that I’ll stay and I’ll give it my all,” he concluded.
Dispute with La Liga
Before Messi confirmed that he is staying in Barcelona, his father and representative, Jorge Horacio, had a message for the Spanish National Professional Football League. The player contradicted La Liga regarding the expiration of his contract. And he addressed Javier Tebas, the league president, accusing him of “evident bias” for acting in defense of the clubs he represents. “We don’t know which contract they analyzed and what are the grounds on which they infer that he would have a termination clause applicable if the player decided to request its unilateral termination, with effect from the end of the 2019/20 sports season. This is due to an obvious error on his part,” says the player’s father, adding that Messi’s release is “marked literally in clause 8.2.3.6 of the contract signed between the club and the player”.
After the 33-year-old Argentine striker announced by Burofax that he would use the clause in his contract to leave Barça at the end of the 2019-2020 season, a year before the end of his contract, La Liga positioned itself in favor of Barcelona. On Sunday, the organization announced that it has analyzed the Argentinean’s contract and found that Messi’s bond with the club remains in force until June 2021.
“The contract is in force and contains a termination clause applicable in case Lionel Andrés Messi decided to request its early unilateral termination, made according to Article 16 of Royal Decree 1006/1985, of June 26th, which regulates the special labor relationship of professional athletes,” La Liga published, emphasizing that it would not approve Messi’s departure without the prior payment of EUR 700 million.
This conclusion was contested by Messi’s father. “This compensation would not apply when the termination of the contract by the player’s unilateral decision takes effect from the end of the 2019-20 sports season,” said Jorge Horacio in a statement (the question would then revert to the point where the two parties disagree on when the season actually ended). And he concluded: “Without prejudice to other rights provided for in the contract and which you omit, it is clear that the compensation of EUR 700 million, provided for in the previous clause 8.2.3.5, does not apply in any way.”
The Spanish league was quick to react to the statement, insisting: “La Liga replied to the message sent by the representative of player Leo Messi. This reply evidences and confirms the decontextualized interpretation and detached from the literal meaning of the contract [by Messi’s family], so La Liga reiterates the statement published on August 30th.”
The matter ended with Messi’s confirmation that he will stay in Barcelona.
Source: El País