Barcelona insist Messi not for sale but player’s father claims it will “be difficult” for Messi to stay
The Lionel Messi saga continues after a two hour meeting between the player’s representatives and Barcelona ended in a stalemate with both parties sticking to their guns.
At the meeting between Jorge Messi and club president Josep Maria Bartomeu on Wednesday afternoon, the Blaugrana insist they will not negotiate for the sale of Messi. They have made the same declaration in public and internally but the player’s position remains the same, that he wishes to leave the club.
The highly-anticipated meeting had Messi’s father and Rodrigo Messi, the player’s brother and advisor, in attendance facing Bartomeu and Javier Bordas, a Barcelona director.
The two parties are still some way away from any agreement despite the lengthy talks which were held. Despite that, the meeting was not a tense occasion and they will keep in touch with more talks a possibility in the near future.
Bartomeu insists that the release clause in the deal expires on June 10, meaning that Messi is under contract and should return to training, which he is yet to do. The club president also repeated that they would not negotiate the sale of Messi under any circumstance as he forms a key part of their sporting project and is under contract.
From Messi’s side, they point to the burofax which was sent making clear his desire to leave and taking advantage of the clause in spirit, allowing him to leave for free. When he arrived at the club’s training ground, Jorge already made it clear that he would see it as ‘very difficult’ for Lionel to stay at Barcelona.
This means that there is no real movement in the situation with both sides remaining stubborn in their point of view. The next step could be that Messi comes out to speak publicly for the first time, or Barcelona could threaten to fine him if he continues to miss training.
The most extreme possibility is that Messi departs Barcelona and leaves it up to the courts to decide, but that is unlikely given that neither Lionel nor the club are interested in the legal complications of such a decision.
Eight days have now passed since the situation became clear when Messi sent a burofax to the club expressing his belief that he could leave, and since then he has not turned up to undergo tests or train.
He remains consistent in his belief that the burofax was correct that he could leave for free and a judge would agree, but no club has been brave enough to enter this legal chaos despite interest from Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.
