Barça is rebuilding without the weight of a contract it couldn't fulfill, but with other mortgages and a lack of the financial and emotional assets Messi promised.
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| [Football Club of Barcelona-FCB] |
Messi has spoken his ultimate goodbye after an extraordinary, frenetic, and perplexing series of events in recent hours. FC Barcelona raised the alarm a year ago after receiving the legendary burofax in which the Argentine star stated his decision to quit the club for a variety of reasons, not just financial. However, Laporta's victory and the ongoing negotiations with the 10 and its environs presaged a new type of relationship with the club until recently, which consisted of a five-year agreement with a diversification of Messi's benefits beyond sports, to fit in the accounts of a club on the verge of bankruptcy.
It was a creative solution that had to allow the player's immediate continuity so that, in a dire economic situation, he could serve "as a pole of attraction for some operations," as Laporta put it a month ago, while also ensuring important marketing revenues that, without the Argentine, would be jeopardized.
Maintaining the emotional tie between the athlete and the supporters, which had been developed over two decades.
But, without this transition phase, Barcelona will enter a new age. True, without the slab of a contract that can no longer be permitted, but also without the asset that was meant to keep Messi connected with the club's name even after he retired from playing. And with other mortgages still waiting, such as the escalating pay debt caused by the remainder of the workforce's lavish wages, which has been mostly amortized sportingly.
Joan Laporta's appearance in front of the media was long, and it was predicated on two important components to comprehend this hitherto unimaginable goodbye. On the one hand, the "calamitous and terrible administration of past meetings" that would have increased the club's losses in the previous year to 487 million euros is out of the question. In the background, the president's criticism was directed at the organization in charge of the competition, since the agreement to sell 10% of the League's commercial rights to the CVC investment fund announced by Javier Tebas mortgaged, according to Laporta, the club's audiovisual rights for fifty years, an operation that Barça's top representative was unwilling to undertake.
The president was persuasive when confronted with a harsh reverie. However, there were still some loose ends, such as the reasons for the abrupt change in recent days. More explanations will be required to determine how detrimental Tébar's proposition was to the club and if adopting it would have been sufficient (or not) to renew the Argentine. And, more importantly, to understand the entire scope of the harm caused by the previous meeting to the club's economics.
Messi is without a doubt the finest player in FC Barcelona's history, a legend and a reference, someone who has shattered all records and authored the most unforgettable pages in the club's history. Beyond his undeniable brilliance, Messi served as a point of reference for a future that had to be achieved in the medium term through times of team renewal and changes. Now, without their help, a period of uncertainty begins, with the objective of rebuilding. A desert road that will put not only Barça, but all of Spanish football, to the test in order to keep up with the other big European leagues.