what does it take to make it happen?

At the exit of the meeting, Jorge Messi was asked by the journalists who were waiting for him at the door of the Laporta property and he was cautious in all his answers, but he admitted that his son wants to return to Barça after two seasons of exile at PSG, where he ended up being shunned by a large section of the fans. “We would love for Leo to return to Barcelona, ​​of course. This is his preferred option. But we’ll see, we still have to talk about many things. I trust that it can be like this,” declared the father of the best footballer in history , who has other offers on the table and would not want to delay his decision for many more days. Nor would he want to repeat the sequence of two summers ago, when he landed in Barcelona to sign a new contract as a Blaugrana player and was met with an unexpected refusal.

What must Barça do to make the return of Leo Messi a reality?

Barça made an ambitious projection a few weeks ago for this summer market. Things have not changed: it continues to be exceeded, with a wage bill above the limit. And since Barça wants to make signings, including Messi, it asked the League to return to the 1:1 rule. In other words, stop being overpaid and be able to allocate every euro obtained for the departure of a footballer to finding a replacement. To achieve the goal, spending had to be cut sharply. The institution committed to this through the viability plan. At first glance, the League saw the proposal as “coherent”, although it requested more documents from Barça before validating it. In the offices they expect an imminent answer and are convinced that it will be affirmative. It’s a matter of hours.

However, the fact that the viability plan is approved does not mean that Messi has free rein to return to Barça. At this point in the film, everyone knows that Laporta, as demonstrated by the last meeting with the player’s father, is pulling out all the stops to convince them. But the plan is not enough. It’s just a first step. From here, Barça will have to start making room in the dressing room, selling players and generating more salary margin.

The money, in the absence of more levers, comes out of two sections. The first, what the club saves in wages. And the second, the profit that has been obtained in case of transfer. In other words, the amount entered minus the amount still to be amortized from their signing – which is zero in the case of players who have come free or who have trained in the youth system. In addition, there is a queue of operations that must be done imminently and that will rival the arrival of Messi. Especially the inscriptions of Gavi and Araujo. The renewals of Sergi Roberto, Marcos Alonso and Iñaki Peña must also be validated. And, to finish, the signing of Iñigo Martínez, the Athletic Club centre-back who arrives on a free transfer and who has already committed – although it has not been made official – to Barça.

The importance of receiving the yes from the League is best understood with an example. As long as Barça is in excess, the hypothetical sale of Ansu Fati for 50 million would mean that the club could only allocate 40% of this money and 20% of his fee to signings. On the other hand, with the 1:1 rule everything that is entered and what is saved in salary could be used to find one or more spare parts. Messi depends on it, no matter how low the salary he accepts. And this, as it depends on the will of players and other clubs, takes time. A time that the Argentinian and his father would like to shorten as much as possible, with the pressure that it also entails, having a multimillion-dollar offer from Saudi football, which has already charmed Cristiano Ronaldo and is on the way to doing so with Benzema, with a limited validity