The tension between Barcelona and LaLiga intensifies. The maximum Blaugrana leader, Joan Laporta, used Barça TV to reply without palliative to the president of the LFP, Javier Tebas, who came to openly criticize those responsible for the Blaugrana club for not having done everything in their power to retain Leo Messi and adding without shame that Florentino Pérez has “kidnapped” Barça.
Laporta began by publicly qualifying as “improper” the statements made by Tebas to the Sport newspaper, especially considering that “we are talking about the president of LaLiga.” The Blaugrana leader was particularly hurt, since “Instead of looking for harmony and understanding, he is looking for conflict and confrontation.”
Laporta went even further: “He has a sick obsession with Barça and its values, but we Catalans already know him”. In fact, he took advantage of the situation to remind Tebas that “the Board of Barça, voted by the members, prevents neither the League nor anyone else from appropriating the interests and rights of the club, preserving them so that they are not dominated by other institutions.” And already he sent another message to him: “From Barça we will not follow their personal projects and even less if they want to use our club to get money, mortgaging television rights for the next 50 years”.
The Blaugrana leader wanted to make it clear that if Messi is not at Barça, it is because of the strict financial ‘fair play’ rules imposed by LaLiga on the rest of the clubs: “He wants to be more papist than the Pope in fair play. That he makes him look at it, because the rest of the countries have been more flexible and have been able to keep their most relevant players.”