Tomorrow, Sunday, it will be an exact month for Messi to stop being officially a Barcelona player. Leo's contract expires on June 30 and the offices of the Blaugrana club are going to live that time in tension. The club has done its homework and has presented its flagship with “the best offer that under the circumstances we could make,” as President Joan Laporta explained on Friday in his first public appearance.
In that same appearance, the top Blaugrana leader acknowledged that today he is “moderately optimistic” regarding Messi's continuity, “that it is not done, but that it is going well.”
In the absence of a month for Messi to stop being a Barça player federatively, the club can do little else. Leo is in Argentina with a draft contract to which he and his advisers must respond. Laporta is aware that “Leo deserves more and can achieve more, but his desire to make Barça great will make him appreciate the effort of the club.” The details of the proposal have not been disclosed, but it seems clear that it is a long-term contract that will begin by asking the best player in the club's history to lower his salary.
The offer, broadly advanced by TV3, proposes a two-year renewal, the possibility that he later plays in the United States as the club's ambassador and that when he retires he will join as a member of the club's soccer area. In short, less money now, but a longer contract that would extend beyond his retirement as an active footballer.
This is the economic part, in which Barça, in obvious difficulties, cannot give more. Then there is the sporty and vital one. In sports, Laporta was very clear: “The first thing Leo asks for is affection, being comfortable and having a good time. And for that to happen, you have to be able to win. You are doing a lot on your part. Leo wants us to think big again. And that's what we're doing ”. In this sense, Messi will value the sports project that is being built from the premise that he trusts Laporta more than Bartomeu. “The difference between the Leo who a year ago put a burofax to leave and the current Leo is that before there was another president and now I am,” Laporta said at his press conference.
Starting Monday, the sports project will add names, because additions to be announced, including Kun Agüero, but in no way will it be defined until it is specified who will direct it, the exits and the salary reductions.
While Laporta is the one who deals the most with the player, the rest of the club's managers and executives are dedicated to the task of trying to close the legal aspects with his father and representative and the lawyers who advise him. Not an easy task. A contract like this has countless edges. Messi is aware that Barça is giving everything, but that does not exclude a negotiation that can go beyond June 30. The date on which Leo, even temporarily, will cease to be a Barça player.