Just a year and a day ago, Leo Messi announced that he was staying at Barça after trying to leave. That happened on September 4, and after requesting through a famous burofax his departure from the club. That document, on which rivers of ink have flowed and which has even been said should be exposed in the Museum of the FC Barcelona because it is the living history of the club, it had not yet seen the light. Up to now. And is that Sports world has had access to that letter with which Messi he communicated to the then president Josep Maria Bartomeu, on August 24, 2020, who availed himself of a special clause of his contract, which still had another season in force, to leave the Barça entity on August 30. That is, only six days later.
Messi sent the burofax from the address of your office, located at Diagonal avenue Barcelona, for the attention of Bartomeu and to the address of the club offices, the street Aristides Maillol. The time of shipment was 6:19 p.m. on August 24, although that day did not transcend the movement of Leo nor the arrival of your request at the club offices.
“By means of this, and in accordance with the provisions of clause 3.1. of the contract of November 25, 2017, I express to you my willingness to terminate my employment contract as a professional footballer with an effective date of August 30, 2020 ”, was the heading of the burofax. The aforementioned clause 3.1. Leo’s last contract is the one that said that its duration was from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2021 but added that the player could go free, without claiming just cause, at the end of the 2019-20 season. to the club made before June 10, 2020, without any rights for the FC Barcelona”.
The burofax that Messi sent to Bartomeu in 2020
There is the key to burofax from Messi: that Leo He asked to leave but on August 24, the June 10 deadline to denounce his contract and go free by two and a half months. Hence, in the burofax he argues his request referring to the special nature of the season, which ended in August due to the three-month break motivated by the pandemic of the Covid: “I understand that the time frame of the right of unilateral termination without alleging cause that regulates the aforementioned clause must be interpreted in accordance with the exceptional circumstances in which the 2019-2020 football competition season has developed, due to the State of Alarm and the situation of force majeure derived from the pandemic Covid-19 “.
Messi he continues to argue in his burofax that, despite having passed the June 10 limit, his request is on time given that “due to this exception, the 2019-2020 competition season ended yesterday, without prejudice to the fact that For our team, this finalization took place on August 15, when we returned to Barcelona after our elimination from the Champions League on the night of August 14 ”. Leo refers to August 23 as the day of the end of the 19-20 season because it was the day the final of the Champions Come in Bayern and PSG.
The receipt of the burofax that Messi sent to Bartomeu
In the final paragraph of the burofax, Messi insists that his request to leave, despite still having a one-year contract, is justified: “In any case, within 10 days after the end of the competition season, and thus complying with the agreed term to exercise the clause 3.1., In accordance with the material content of our agreement, which must be interpreted in accordance with the exceptional circumstances of the 2019-2020 season, I exercise my right to terminate the contract effective August 30, 2020, with the consequences provided in the aforementioned provision 3.1. Sincerely, Lionel Andrés Messi “.
A ‘fake’ burofax circulated
The spirit of the burofax that Leo Messi sent to the club transcended. However, the literality of it was not known. The same day it was known that he had sent it, a burofax (photo below these lines) circulated on social networks that turned out to be a ‘fake’. In it appeared the coat of arms of the city of Barcelona, the coat of arms of the kingdom of Spain and even that of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In addition, it was dated in Castelldefels, Messi’s usual place of residence, when the actual fax was sent from Barcelona and citing as Leo’s address that of his professional office, which is on Avinguda Diagonal in Barcelona.
The ‘fake’ burofax that circulated about Messi’s goodbye to Barça
Clause 3.1. of Messi’s contract was the one that argued Leo to go free. That is how he contemplated it, provided he requested it before June 10. The clause clarified that a campaign was understood from July 1 of one year to June 30 of the next, which penalized crack.
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