How Lionel Messi went from signing a contract with Barcelona to leaving in 3 days – details of exit revealed

An exit that shook the foundations of football – Lionel Messi leaving Barcelona was the headline on the club’s website that shocked the world. Messi was set to sign a new deal with the Blaugrana, and returned to the city on Thursday 5 August 2021 to do so, but was told he could not do so. On Sunday he bid a tearful farewell to the club and the fans.

His exit was scheduled for Monday. President Joan Laporta ran for office on a promise to keep Messi at the club and to do so he agreed terms with Argentina. The money for that deal was set to come from the infamous CVC agreement, which involved La Liga selling 10% of its TV rights for the next 50 years for an immediate €2.1b cash injection for clubs, which was used to pay could go. Invest in salaries and infrastructure. game has revealed how Barcelona’s involvement in that deal ended and Messi then had to pull out.

La Liga president Javier Tebas explained the terms of the deal Laporta In a secret meeting in Lleida in July, and with the rest of the clubs all set to do so, when Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez received news of the agreement, he immediately spoke to CVC chief Javier de Jaime about the terms of the deal. I inquired. , not informed in advance – Pérez does considerable business with the CVC, putting him in a position of power.

Pérez did not see the benefits of the deal for Real Madrid, and informed general director José Ángel Sánchez, before asking him to find out if Barcelona were aware of the deal. He in turn called his then counterpart at the Camp Nou, Ferran Reverter, and explained the tough terms of the deal. He was unaware of the deal, as Laporta had held the meeting without telling others, in the hope that it would be revealed after the deal Messi Was signed and sealed for return.

Reverter then called José Elías, who was the guarantor of Laporta’s board, to talk about the deal. It was Elias’s €40m bank guarantee in which Laporta and his board held power, and one of the conditions of that support was that he must be informed at all times about any deal that might affect his guarantee. The fact that Reuter called out Elias in front of the president was seen as a betrayal by Laporta, and essentially ended his time at the club, with his exit eventually made official in February of 2022. .

Elias became angry upon learning the details of the deal and informed Laporta. It happened in the space of a few hours on Monday, and Elias made it clear that if Laporta did a CVC deal, he would immediately withdraw his €40m bank guarantee. Without any option to finance the contract, Laporta felt his hands were tied, and saw this as the end of Messi’s time at the club.

Messi’s father and agent Jorge Messi was traveling to Barcelona to complete the deal, and he told Laporta directly that money would never be an issue, and that Messi would stay at all costs. However, by this point, Laporta had called it quits, and after rejecting the CVC deal, he felt there was no way back. Messi therefore feels Laporta sold him out, and his exit was not purely financial.

Sport’s piece states that Laporta had ‘no other choice’, but naturally this is just one side and interpretation of events. Laporta put himself in a situation where the issue was not resolved three days before Messi’s contract was to be signed, and Elias or Reverter could have been informed before the deal was disclosed by others. Ultimately, Laporta was in an incredibly difficult position, with many difficult decisions to make, but he did not keep his promise to keep Messi at the club.