Crisis not over as unhappy Messi skips training again

BARCELONA • Lionel Messi's grudging acceptance that he will have to stay put at Barcelona after losing his stand-off with club president Josep Maria Bartomeu has left the Argentinian superstar's future still in doubt.

The 33-year-old, who was absent from training yesterday - the day after announcing that he would reluctantly stay at the club - launched a stinging attack on Bartomeu claiming that he had broken his word to let him leave.

The absence of any new contract means that even if Messi is not allowed to leave this summer, he could enter into negotiations with other teams from Jan 1 and leave for free when his current deal expires in July.

The feeling that his reluctant decision was by no means the end of the affair was clear in Spanish daily Marca's headline: "Messi stays, the crisis too".

Bartomeu could yet respond with his resignation, having previously indicated that he would step down if the player publicly said he was the problem and agreed to stay.

Messi revealed in an exclusive interview with Goal on Friday that he felt his initial decision to leave was in the best interests of the club. "I needed it, the club needed it and it was good for everyone," he said.

Messi's departure would have eased some of the club's financial problems. Despite Barca being the world's richest club, according to the Deloitte Money League, players took a 70 per cent pay cut because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The club have a wage bill of €671 million (S$1.08 billion) in an era when their revenues have been hit by the lack of gate receipts and when new Dutch manager Ronald Koeman is trying to overhaul the squad.

Yet they will need to fork out €150 million gross for Messi to stay another year. He would also qualify to receive a loyalty bonus of €70 million.

Messi believed he had a clause in his contract that meant he could leave for free at the end of last season but Barca said that the option expired on June 10.

"The president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I wanted to go or if I wanted to stay and in the end he didn't end up keeping his word," Messi told Goal.

According to Spanish football expert Guillem Balague, the soured relationship means Barca may have won a hollow battle but could lose the war.

"I'm not sure we have heard the end of this saga yet," he wrote in his column for the BBC.

"Koeman and Barcelona are going to have to get used to working with a player who claims he has been deceived by the club president, a player who has made it abundantly clear he wants to leave, and a player who has openly stated he is unhappy."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE