A Spanish newspaper returns to the charge against Lionel Messi and reveals his latest demands before leaving Barcelona

The barcaleakslike the scandal surrounding the previous release of Leone Messi of Barcelona and its confrontation with the management led by Giuseppe Maria Bartomeu, have more chapters to view. This Tuesday, the newspaper El Mundo, which at the time had shown the amount of the contract with Flea that would have led to the “ruin” of the Catalan team, went up a step and detailed the requests that the Argentine footballer would have to reach. its renewal, then frustrated, just over a year ago.

“A private box at the Camp Nou for his family and that of Luis Suárez; a private plane flight for the whole family to Argentina at Christmas; a € 10 million bonus just for signing up; recover the cuts due to the pandemic in subsequent years with 3% interest; or to be able to leave Barcelona whenever he wanted through a symbolic clause of € 10,000. These are just some of the draconian conditions, a loot, that Leo Messi imposed in June 2020 to renew the largest contract in the history of sport, for which he was already earning 74.9 million euros net a year, amidst devastating social networks. . and economic impact caused by Covid. This stems from the chain of emails between his father and the representative, Jorge Messi, his lawyers and former president Josep Maria Bartomeu and the executive management of Barça. EL MUNDO has had exclusive access to a huge amount of documentation and e-mails that are in the possession of the Barçagate judicial investigation and which in recent years have also affected other big stars of the club such as Gerard Piqué or Neymar. These are the files of the ruin, which this newspaper will reveal in the next few days, a true Barçaleaks that credits the greed of the players to obscene extremes, with the number one in the forefront ”, published the Spanish newspaper.

In one of those exchanges, according to the newspaper El Mundo, Jorge Messi, the father of La Pulga, replied to Alfonso Nebot, director of the “Family office Leo Messi” (which manages Rosario’s career), that he wanted Barcelona to be tried. “the weight of the sword on his head”in the negotiation.

Before sending the famous burofax that broke relations between Messi and Bartomeu’s management, Barcelona had accepted Pulga’s requests, except to lower the termination clause from 700 million to the symbolic ones 10 thousand euros and condition the payment of the 10 million purchase bonus to the club returning to pre-pandemic income.

When the talks began in June 2020, in the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Jorge Pecourt, the lawyer for the Messi family, would have proposed a two-year extension, with a salary reduction of 20% of his salary for the 2020 season / 21, which would be recovered at a rate of 10% in each of the following seasons, in addition to the 3% annual interest, and also the signing of a “commitment” with Rodrigo Messi Leo’s brother “to pay outstanding commissions” as the representative of Ansu Factsat that time companion of the Flea in Barcelona.

The signature had started talking a month earlier between the then Blaugrana president, Josep María Bartomeu, and Jorge Messi: “Accept the renewal for another year with a section indicating that each of the following seasons will be automatically renewed if Leo does. to say the opposite before April 30th, we believe it would be a perfect agreement for everyone ”, Bartomeu, the father of number 10, would have anticipated, again according to the newspaper.

“Being the best player in the world and spending his entire career in his club is something very positive that shows the greatness of the person towards his colors. I would like to agree, but I understand that next year there will be elections and a new president “, he continued.

Background

In January 2021, with Messi already released to be able to negotiate with any club due to the proximity of the expiration of his contract, El Mundo shocked the sports planet by publishing not only the contractual figures but also stating that they were more than 555 million. euros that have “ruined” the economy of the powerful FC Barcelona.

Such a journalistic discovery – ethical issues of publication aside – could not help but cause great splinters. And one of these, predictable, was the reaction of the Argentine crack.

And according to the Catalan newspaper Sport, Leo, logically enraged by the leak of how much he earns from his renewal with the club in 2017, has decided together with his lawyers to start an investigation first to determine who or who might be behind the escape. contract news and, secondly, initiate legal action against El Mundo.

There will therefore be no choice but to close the circles of those who may have had access to those private acts, whose perpetrators will also be denounced and who, depending on their environment, should not be more than four or five people.

This goes in the opposite direction to what the club published, denying “categorically” that the leak occurred from the bowels of the Catalans, adding at the same time that it will also try to be a plaintiff against the newspaper.

The newspaper, which is based in Madrid and is usually one of the two or five most widely read Spanish-language newspapers in the world, had published that Messi’s contract amounts to 555,237,619 euros gross for four years “is the sum of fixed salary, image rights, a series of multimillion-dollar bonuses unprecedented to date, bonuses and a series of variables “.

Everything has shades of political play in the most hectic moments for the club since Messi made his professional debut in October 2004. In 2020, after the catastrophic elimination from the Champions League against Bayern Munich (lost 8-2) and then After the almost got rid of Luis Suárez, one of the best strikers in the world and also a friend of the Argentine, the famous episode of the burofax took place, although Leo had already informed the Blaugrana board of his intentions to leave.

Finally, he stayed at the club until June and, in tears, left the place that hosted him all his professional life to move to Paris Saint Germain in France.