Manchester City and Pep Guardiola have been dragged into a domestic, and it’s on several levels. Monday’s edition of Spanish newspaper Marca has a big story on the front page explaining Lionel Messi has told Barcelona he won’t renew.
Inside, they slowly backpedal from that stance, to leave everything wide open once again.
Marca say that in the second week of July, whilst holidaying with his family on a yacht, Messi decided he wouldn’t be renewing his Barcelona contract and sent that message to the club’s president.
Josep Maria Bartomeu asked Messi to think again, and pointed out any transfer would have to be at the player’s €250m buyout clause.
Marca explain it’s important to put it all into context, already reversing, and say it was just a few days after Messi and his father received tax convictions and suspended prison sentences.
A strop, then.
The Spanish newspaper also point out it was also not longer after Messi had lost the Copa America final with Argentina, a match which led him to retire from international football… and then reverse his decision without missing a match.
Another strop.
Marca end their article by saying Messi and his father now seem open to negotiating a new deal but they point out ‘He believes he and his family have suffered persecution and cruelty’.
That relates to the tax case, and with an appeal hopefully resolved between January 2017 and June 2017, that could impact any decision. Messi’s persecution complex after receiving a sentence, following a conviction for tax fraud, in a region of Spain which helped him as a child to grow into the world’s finest footballer, is very real.
That’s why Barcelona left their pride at the door and went full throttle into a defence of Messi which drew guffawing all over the world. Fans were encouraged to tweet #weareallleomessi and photograph themselves holding all their ten fingers up, to show the player’s shirt number.
In a time where real issues hit the world on an all too frequent basis, the Je Suis Messi treatment was pathetic. But then Barcelona knew they had to kneel at the player’s alter.
So that’s the end of Marca’s claims, and in a separate article it’s stated Manchester City would be his probable destination. Marca state: ‘If Leo Messi decided to leave Barcelona in the summer of 2018, Manchester City is the club that has a greater chance of acquiring his services. Besides the growing potential of the Citizens , the presence of Guardiola on the bench, Txiki Begiristain as director of football, and Ferran Soriano as CEO represents a definite incentive for the Rosario.’
There’s not much new here, and Marca, being a Madrid leaning newspaper, will be trying to eek every drop out of whatever is there. It’s long been known Messi feels persecuted by the Spanish tax authorities. It’s long been known he’s prone to the occasional sulk and strop.
Given that, it’s no surprise he had a July strop at Barcelona. And it’s no surprise things have softened since.
Messi and his family lost a lot of money via the tax action, and given that he feels persecuted over it, it doesn’t take a leap of imagination to believe he wants his new contract to be so big it in some way provides compensation.
Barcelona are over a barrel. Messi’s contract ends in June 2018 and he holds all the cards, it’s likely going to cost an unprecedented amount of money to get the player to renew.
Manchester City have been dragged into the middle of the domestic, and they could well be used by Messi’s camp to further turn the screws on Barcelona.
Argentina face Colombia this week, if they somehow manage to put in another poor performance and lose again, then their World Cup Qualifying campaign will take another big blow. In that scenario, some more strops would certainly be possible.
If Manchester City are seriously considering signing Messi then they’ll probably want to stir things, which could make everything a little more interesting, but sounds like quite a fun thing, in a mischievous way, to do.
The most likely scenario here is a Barcelona renewal, on a humungous contract which is probably a little longer than it should be, and the Catalan club falling over themselves to make sure nothing upsets the player. After all, #weareallleomessi.
