Lionel Messi leaves Barcelona: live updates, rumors as PSG lead, Joan Laporta explains decision



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Lionel Messi will part ways with Barcelona. While the player and the club had accepted a five-year contract extension, La Liga salary cap rules mean that despite the parties’ agreement, the new contract cannot be signed under league rules. Messi’s old contract expired earlier this summer.

Barcelona president Joan Laporta revealed on Friday that the club would have spent 110% of their annual income on player salaries if they had retained Messi, who had agreed to a five-year extension at a significantly reduced rate. Accepting La Liga’s proposed sale of a 10% stake in the competition to private equity firm CVC would have allowed Barca to retain their all-time best player, but they are refusing to back the deal.

Laporta was keen to blame the club’s financial chaos at the doorstep of his predecessor Josep Maria Bartomeu and revealed that Barcelona are set to lose nearly $ 600million for the 2020-21 season. When asked if Barca and Messi could back off the precipice, Laporta insisted he didn’t want to offer any ‘false hope’ without fully admitting that there was no way the n ° 10 can extend his 21-year stay in Catalonia.

Sources told CBS Sports that Paris Saint-Germain are working hard to secure Messi’s signing and believe the cost of signing the six-time Ballon d’Or winner may be mitigated by the revenue his acquisition would generate. for the giants of Ligue 1. After Fabrice Romano they contacted the player’s camp directly to negotiate an agreement. PSG appear to be the forerunner of a deal only they and a handful of Premier League clubs could reasonably afford.

This is the final chapter in a saga that began a year ago when Messi first revealed he wanted to leave the only club he had ever played for. Although he finally gave in to suing Barcelona to get out of the last year of his contract, his contractual situation was never fully resolved. Even though it seemed that the election of Laporta to return to Barcelona as president Messi was likely to stay, details were never fully worked out and now it looks like La Liga rules continue to stand in the way.



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