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Lionel Messi.
Barcelona and Lionel Messi did not reach an agreement to renew their contract, so the footballer will leave the club for his entire life.
“Both parties regret that in the end it was impossible to fulfill the wishes of both the player and the club,” the Spanish team said in a statement.
The Catalan club reported that the agreement with its captain and figure “cannot be formalized due to economic and structural obstacles (Spanish LaLiga regulations) “.
The first to react was the Catalan sports press. Mundo Deportivo published “Barça announces its break with Messi”, while Sport titled “Messi does not renew with Barça!”.
In Messi’s other “home”, Argentina, the sports daily Olé considered the news a “world bomb.”
The Argentine retires from the club where he became a professional footballer after 778 games in the first division, 672 goals and 35 titles (including 10 leagues and four European Champions Cup).
Image source, Getty Images
The player’s father, Jorge Messi, and Joan Laporta, the club’s president, were leading the negotiations.
Economic and football reasons
The sports newspaper Marca, from Madrid, delves into the possible causes behind this final.
“Although yesterday everything indicated that the injection of money contributed by the investment fund CVC would serve to fix the economic situation of the club, it has not been like that.”
One of the first clubs to denounce this rapprochement between the Spanish soccer league and this investment fund had been Real Madrid, in a statement:
“This agreement was made without the participation of Real Madrid and without their knowledge and LaLiga has allowed for the first time today that we have limited access to the terms of the agreement,” said the Madrid club.
Other reasons that the world sports press speculate behind the disagreement is the lack of conviction that the star would have about the competitiveness of the new Barcelona squad, a club that even brought this season Sergio “Kun” Aguero, Messi’s friend and historical companion of the Argentine soccer team.
The other great speculation revolves around the Messi’s next destination. The media places him in Manchester City, Paris Saint Germain or the United States Soccer League (MLS for its acronym in English).
The player had returned to Spain a few hours ago after his vacation, after having won the Copa América with his national team in Brazil.
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