The day after Barça formalized the departure of Lionel Messi, Joan Laporta, the president of the Catalan club, attended a press conference to take stock of the situation. Here are his main explanations while the future of the 34-year-old Argentinian star panics the football world and in particular the supporters of PSG who are watching his possible recruitment.
In the preamble, he gave some background on the situation of his club. “The payroll represents 110% of the club’s income,” he explained. The losses are greater than expected. We have no margin. To respect “fair play”, Barça had to be in favor of a contract which was a mortgage for the club for half a century, for television rights. I am not prepared to mortgage the rights of the club for anyone. We have a 122 year old institution that is above the players, if not above the best player in the world. We will be eternally grateful to him, but the club is above all ”
He then answered questions from Spanish journalists present at Camp Nou. He spoke of the legacy the Argentine will leave. “He made history, he gave us a lot of joys, sporting successes,” he assured. A new era is opening. But we will always be grateful to him ”.
On the player’s future, Laporta explained that he did not want to “create false hopes” to those who imagine that Barça’s announcement could be a bluff towards La Liga. “The best player in the world is not happy, but he has other proposals, he added, and the time has come to react, without being won over by emotions, but by the coldness of the figures. The idea was to give him a 2-year contract, payable over 5 years. He then accepted a 5 year contract where the idea was that he would stay two years. We were convinced that it was a good solution to respect financial fair play. But even that was refused by the League. We wanted the post-Messi stage to start in two years, but we have to move it forward two years. We hope to be successful without him. We are more excited than ever. “
Relaunched to find out if he regretted being elected on the promise of Messi’s contract renewal, Laporta swept aside the criticism. “We did everything we could,” he said. We had less than six months to manage this file and in addition we discovered that the figures were false. It is the old rulers to blame. We especially thought that La Liga would be more permissive. In addition, in recent days, we had reached a financial agreement with the player. But we had to make a decision. And that’s what we’ve done. “
Laporta acknowledges that he understood that his hopes of keeping Messi were over “two days ago” and he warned the Messi clan, in particular his father, this Thursday, “after two months of intense discussions”. On the Argentinian state of mind, Laporta assures us: “Leo wanted to stay. I say it again. He is not happy. We all wanted him to stay. But he must admit the reality because it cannot be changed. I wish him the best wherever he goes. Barça is his home. “
Is a League appeal allowing Barca to finally sign Messi still possible? “You can’t live dreams,” replies Laporta. I like to dream but today it is not possible. The leader, on the other hand, explained that he hoped to be able to register his four recruits of the summer including Memphis Depay, in particular thanks to the salary efforts accepted by the players whom he thanked for this.
Finally, when asked about the interest of PSG, Laporta slips: “I would have liked him to continue at Barça. What is happening now does not concern me. You have to ask him ”. Relaunched on the possibility for Paris to recruit him, the president is satisfied to say: “I do not know if there is an interest of the PSG, but one always said that he had other options”.
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