A respected football journalist claims that La Liga believes that Barcelona have a deal ready for Lionel Messi, 35 – and that the Spanish league’s marketing people are already working on signing the little wizard.
Gerard Romero is the name of the journalist who claimed this – on radio channel RAC1. Romero is often quoted by Spain’s main sports newspapers and leads Messi’s news.
The Athletic also believe they know Messi’s return to Barcelona is “realistic”.
– Divorce is imminent, wrote French L’Equipe at Easter. Messi is about to finish his second season at Paris Saint-Germain – having spent more than 20 years at FC Barcelona, where he arrived as a 13-year-old from Argentina.
Gerard Romero already claimed in January that Messi was not ready to extend his contract with Paris Saint-Germain. Now he says:
- At the end of March, FC Barcelona submitted a proposal to La Liga on how Messi’s return could be carried out purely financially.
- La Liga rejected part of this proposal, but FC Barcelona is working on a new draft.
- When Messi left FC Barcelona in August 2021, the club blamed La Liga for it – citing “financial and structural hurdles” as the reason.
– La Liga believes that Messi has agreed to return. And internally, their marketing force is already busy preparing how Messi will be presented around the world, said Romero, who was among others quoted on Twitter. Reshad Rahmanwho is known to collect Barca news.
Recognized Athletics wrote earlier this week that Messi’s return to Barcelona is very realistic and the club is preparing an offer, but that it is also very challenging due to the club’s financial challenges. Xavi’s team coach must have a clear idea of how Messi can improve the team.
– Xavi regularly calls Messi and has no plans to stop doing it, reports the famous football journalist Fabrizio Romano, reproduced on Twitter by FCB Albiceleste.
The Athletic understands that Barcelona is working on submitting additional plans to La Liga due to new financial demands. For now, La Liga’s management is open to the fact that Barcelona will have to significantly lower their wage bill, from around 450-500 million euros to 250-300 million euros, writes The Athletic. 500 million euros is equivalent to NOK 5.7 billion, so we are talking about several billion less in the salary budget.
Several media have reported that Messi has received a gigantic offer from Al-Hilal – and thus could follow his rival Cristiano Ronaldo to Saudi Arabia. Portuguese playing for Al-Nassr.
Lionel Messi’s contract with Paris Saint-Germain expires after this season.
Just before Christmas, the 35-year-old Messi completed a distinguished career by winning the World Cup with Argentina – but appears to have no plans to hang up his boots yet.
