Joan Laporta, during the act of the alliance with Acnur in New York. /
Barcelona
The president of Barça considers that Barça has a “moral debt” with the Argentine player
“We would like the end of his career to be with the Barça shirt and applauded by the fields he goes to,” said Joan Laporta when asked by Leo Messi at an event celebrating Barça’s alliance with Acnur. The president of the Barça club, who already feels like one of the great winners of this summer’s transfer market, wanted to open the door to the most awaited return by Barça fans. A return that would be the finishing touch to the rebirth of an entity that has gone from a galloping crisis to being the club that has invested the most in the world in restructuring its squad.
Laporta’s words come after the rumor mill around the return of the ’10’ has shot up again in recent months. Messi has not shone with the Paris Saint-Germain shirt at the level that he used to as a Blaugrana and the figures prove it. In his first year after leaving Barça he has barely managed to score 11 goals, terrestrial numbers for a player who had not dropped below thirty goals since the 2007-2008 academic year. That is why even his father, Jorge Messi, has come to welcome a hypothetical return to Barcelona. “Hopefully one day,” he assured in May upon arrival at El Prat airport.
That path also opens up for Joan Laporta, who inevitably feels that his name was forever linked to the departure of the most important player in Barça history. “It is an aspiration that I have as president and I would like it to happen. I have been co-responsible for that ending that I consider provisional. Messi’s stage at Barça did not end as we all wanted, it ended very conditioned for economic reasons and we have a moral debt with him, ”said the maximum president of the club on Friday.
A long-term goal
Laporta considers that right now, after the investment this summer, the operation is unfeasible. Leo Messi has a contract with PSG until 2023, at which time he would be free at the expense of an extension that the Parisian club wants to make effective. It is in this scenario, within a year, when the culé entity could consider the possibility of a return that Xavi Hernández himself currently believes is “impossible”.
The star from Rosario would return at zero cost to close a circle that began as a Barça player in 2000 and that would only have a two-year break outside Barcelona.
