Lionel Messi leaves FC Barcelona and with it the Spanish league. Spanish football fans can hardly imagine worse news from the sport. “Economic and structural hurdles” have prevented Messi from signing a new contract, the club said in a brief press release on Thursday evening – after 20 years at the club. The Argentine had only traveled to Barcelona from his summer vacation on the same day from Ibiza and was supposed to sign a new five-year contract at 4 p.m. His father and manager, Jorge Messi, had also come from Miami. Everything seemed prepared, it only seemed to be about little things. The club had already announced in mid-July that Messi was ready to cut his wages by 50 percent. So far, according to the media, he had earned almost 140 million euros a year.
But even with this waiver, Barça would not have complied with the financial fair play regulations of the Spanish league. “Our salaries correspond to 110 percent of the income,” club boss Joan Laporta openly admitted to the daily El País in July. Laporta had asked the league for flexibility in applying the provisions, to no avail. UEFA also has rules on financial fair play that allow a certain degree of flexibility. But at FC Barcelona it has long been impossible to speak of a temporary imbalance in which the officials could turn a blind eye again. The additional, almost 254 million euros, which flow from the Spanish league into the club’s coffers, do not bring the club anything. La Liga had sold 11 percent of its shares to a private equity firm this week, a deal that brought Spanish football almost 2.7 billion euros.
But the 254 million euros from it are no more than a drop in the ocean in view of the financial problems of FC Barcelona. In June, the members approved the refinancing of the debt at the annual general meeting. Eduardo Romeu, Treasurer and Vice President, drew a terrifying picture of the financial situation and had a new loan approved for 525 million euros. The liabilities total more than one billion euros. The TV revenues for the next five years were deposited as security. In order to meet the payment obligations in the summer before the approval of this loan, the association had to take out a bridging loan of 80 million euros. The radio station Cadenaser commented on Messi: “Barça is a club on the verge of bankruptcy and can no longer afford one of the best paid athletes in the entire world.”
“I always want to win”
Or maybe it wasn’t the money at all. The fans still remember the termination that Messi faxed to the club on August 25th last year. At Barça there hasn’t been a sporting project for a long time, he explained in an interview at the time, which is why he would rather look for his sporting future elsewhere. Even with Ronald Koeman as the new coach, little seemed to change this season. Although Barça won the King’s Cup, they only finished third in the league and were eliminated in the Champions League in the round of 16. In the new season, Sergio Agüero, who was eliminated from Manchester City, is the most notable reinforcement, but the club wanted to return Antoine Griezmann to Atlético Madrid. After a well thought-out season planning, none of that looked like Messi either.
But at 33, the Argentine is still hungry for titles. “I always want to win,” he said when he wanted to leave the club last year. But where could it go now? The Spanish media are speculating about Paris Saint Germain or Manchester City as new clubs. The Catalans, who are plagued by financial difficulties, go away empty-handed. Messi currently has no contract with them. If they had let themselves be talked about a year ago, transfer proceeds of 100 million euros would have been possible, say the reporters at Cadenaser.
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