October 05, (THEWILL) –Â FC Barcelona was unable to acquire La Liga consent to extend the contract of Lionel Messi, who left for Paris Saint-Germain to the Catalans’ dismay, due to its excessive payroll, but Javier Tebas, President of the Spanish top flight football division said there was the possibility for Messi to have remained in La Liga.
In an interview with Cadena Cope, Tebas disclosed how Joan Laporta, Barca’s President could have worked out the contract situation and kept Messi at the Catalan side with his contract extended.
Tebas said: “Players like [Memphis] Depay and [Sergio] Agüero have been signed by Laporta. Messi could have stayed if these players had not been signed.”
With the agreement to sell 10% of La Liga’s stock to the CVC Capital Partners investment fund, Tebas also believed that FC Barcelona may have been able to extend Messi’s contract by partaking in the deal.
According to La Liga’s President, it was a scenario that Barcelona president Joan Laporta rejected but had welcomed at first: “I saw Laporta for dinner in July, and he agreed to sign the CVC agreement. I am not sure if Messi’s contract would have been renewed, but then I got a phone call asking if we could speed up the CVC as Messi was becoming jittery.’ ”
However, as Laporta claimed earlier, they lost Messi to PSG after refusing to sign La Liga’s CVC Capital investment agreement, insisting that La Liga requested the club to put pen to paper on the CVC agreement in order to give them the green light to renew Messi’s contract, one which expired on July 1.
Laporta said at an interview after Messi’s move to Paris had been confirmed: “What happened is what has been explained. There are objective data. Everyone can compare. We were pressured that we would either sign the CVC loan [deal] or there is no fair play.
“There was no margin. There was a pre-agreement and we had shaken hands. There were several agreements and La Liga seemed to accept it, but then they said no without CVC. We didn’t think that the situation was going to improve and we put an end to it.”
After all of these twists and turns, plus Lionel Messi’s non-extension, Tebas’ statements will not delight Barcelona fans, especially with the club in the very dire straits of the post-Messi era with pressure piling on Dutch manager Ronald Koeman after a pair of UEFA Champions League losses and defeat at the hands of Atletico Madrid this weekend.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
