Leo Messi staged what for the club is the confirmation of a challenge and for the player it is the logical consequence that he no longer belongs to the discipline of FC Barcelona. As he had announced on Saturday through his lawyers to the club, the Argentine star did not appear yesterday morning for the mandatory PCR tests before starting training today.
The origin of all the mess is in the interpretation of the last contract that the player signed with the Blaugrana club on November 25, 2017. That document specified the discord clause according to which Messi and his lawyers interpret that they are free to leave the club freely, while Barcelona considers that this point expired on June 10, the deadline for Messi to take advantage of this possibility.
And in the middle of all the mystery, LaLiga appeared yesterday giving unequivocal support to Barcelona. By means of a public note, the employers' association of the professional clubs presided over by Javier Tebas considered that the contract is in force and that the player could only be separated from the entity by paying the clause.
LaLiga explains verbatim in its statement that “LaLiga considers it convenient to clarify that, once the player's contract with his club has been analyzed (…) the contract is currently in force and has a termination clause applicable to the event that Lionel Messi decides to urge termination.” It must be considered that the employer is the custodian of all professional player contracts.
Second, LaLiga anticipated that as a consequence “will not carry out the prior visa process for the player to be removed from the federation if they have not previously paid the amount of said clause “.
In immediate terms, this notice from LaLiga would have little influence if Messi decided to go for the brave and leave Barça to another team because FIFA, which always gives priority to the footballer's right to play, it would grant him a provisional transfer, but LaLiga's ruling could perfectly be a deterrent for those teams that are waiting to sign the '10'.
Because it is one thing that Messi obtains a provisional transfer and another very different that in the end the club that takes him does not pay after a lawsuit is resolved. And in this sense, Barcelona has already presented its first expert evidence in this regard with the opinion of the lawyers of the LaLiga legal department who agree with the Blaugrana club.
It is obvious that it can be considered LaLiga as a testimony of part because if Messi leaves the Spanish championship would also be damaged. LaLiga's international television rights would not be worth as much and the hit could also be noted in numerous sponsorship deals.
The appearance of LaLiga it was the last in hours of bewilderment surrounding the mystery contract. Hours before, Cadena SER in its program El Larguero had advanced that the clause of the famous document would exempt the Argentine from paying the 700 million if he decided to leave in his last season, which they considered optional when assessing that in that mysterious contract an agreement was signed for three seasons plus an optional one, which is the one that was going to start now. In this way, according to information from the SER, Messi would have the legal backing by which he would leave Barça without paying his starting price.
The club's version is quite different: there is no free escape clause for the Argentine player and they deny that the contract was in the three plus one modality, but that it was clearly signed for four seasons. They further add that Messi's tactic runs into a contradiction: on Tuesday they claimed that he could leave because the season had not ended and on Saturday they ask the same because the season has already started.
All this labyrinth in the middle of a situation in which the main actors of the plot are silent. In fact, it is still curious that heThe first official position by means of a statement comes from LaLiga.
Meanwhile, Messi will not appear today for the first session with Koeman, so his minor foul yesterday will assume the degree of serious foul according to the internal code of the Catalan team.
Those who did appear at the session were Luis Suárez, Rakitic or Vidal, three players to whom Koeman had communicated that he does not have them, but that they still have a contract in force, but not such a mysterious contract.