Although four days have gone by and I have listened with all the attention and interest of a Barça supporter to the explanations of club president Joan Laporta (Friday) and Leo Messi himself (Sunday), I still don't understand the reasons why the player has abruptly left Futbol Club Barcelona. The departure of the Argentinian star is extremely painful for the vast majority of blaugrana fans and also for the player, who offered the most tearful press conference in memory by an athlete of this level.
But it seems that in order to complete the puzzle and get it all clear, there is an important piece that someone is holding back, and we don't know for how long. He's leaving for Paris Saint Germain, say well-informed sources, where the petrodollars from the Emirate of Qatar are able - without even breaking a sweat - to pay for Messi, Neymar, Mbappé, Sergio Ramos and so many others, to complete what is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best squad in Europe. PSG is a club of state and the rules of financial fair play must add and subtract differently at those latitudes. Another matter is that for our sins we at Barça have players who are not worth what we are paying them and that is why they do not want to leave the club: because no one will match the huge salary they currently draw.
Messi did not refer to Javier Tebas and La Liga de Fútbol Profesional, but all eyes seem to be on this shady character, a former member of the far-right Fuerza Nueva and a Vox voter who chairs the LFP and has gained control of a business worth billions of euros. Messi has explained, with all sorts of details, that last year - when he sent the famous bureaufax to Josep Maria Bartomeu - he wanted to leave, but that this year he wanted to stay and, for that reason, his fee had been reduced by 50%. He did not hold Joan Laporta responsible, but did leave some aspects in the air when he said that he had done everything possible to stay and everything that had been asked of him. Why wasn't the fee lowered even more? No one asked him, he explained. They just told him he couldn’t continue and all that had been agreed up till then went out the window.
Little by little there is more credence to the idea that also behind the departure of Messi - now that it seems irreversible - is the battle for the European Super League, a project which was put on ice after the withdrawal of the English clubs and the threats from UEFA, but that Barça, Real Madrid and Juventus continue to keep alive. Hence, the lunch shared by the presidents of those three clubs on Saturday in Barcelona.
Perhaps we will see a new chapter in this battle this Thursday, August 12th, when a special assembly of the Spanish football league will be held to validate the agreement with the CVC vulture fund, which consists of injecting 2.7 billion euros into La Liga in return for obtaining a 10% share in the Spanish competition's business. It will be the first open battle of Joan Laporta and Florentino Pérez against Javier Tebas and it will thus be seen if the former have enough power to overturn the agreement. They will do so if the pact with CVC fails to obtain the support of at least 32 of the 42 clubs in the Spanish first and second divisions.
Within a matter of hours, we will see Messi in Paris if negotiations are completed, and we will see our number 10 with a different shirt on. The dream that Messi would be like Pelé, a player who maintained the same colours all his life - in the case of the Brazilian star, those of Santos - will have melted away.