Lionel Messi has been named World Footballer Of The Year for the last four years as is neither the best player on the planet, or the second best, depending on your viewpoint on Ronaldo.
So I would expect that FC Barcelona would be embracing Messi, making him feel wanted and loved. Instead, the club has a shiny new toy in Neymar, and the fragile relationship between Messi and the club is rapidly deteriorating.
Last week, Barcelona’s vice-president of finance, Javier Faus said that he doesn’t believe that the club is about to renew Leo Messi’s contract, since it was extended and improved last year, telling ‘RAC1’.
“I don’t know why we would need to do it again. We don’t need to offer an improved contract every six months”.
Well that infuriated Messi, who rarely gives interviews. But Messi was so incensed at Faus’ comments that was quoted in Argentina as saying:
“He’s someone who doesn’t know anything about football and wants to run Barcelona like a business, which it isn’t.”
”Barcelona is the best team in the world and deserves to be represented by the best executives. And I would like to remind him that neither I nor any of my representatives have asked for a contract extension, as he well knows”, Messi continued, talking to Catalan radio station RAC 1.
Messi was the subject of world record bids this summer from both Chelsea and Bayern Munich, who are both sponsored by Messi sponsor Adidas. There have been rumblings for weeks now, that Barcelona president Sandro Rosell is looking to build the team around is prize signing Neymar, and that he will be willing to do the unthinkable this summer and sell Messi.
The price was smash Gareth Bale’s world record transfer fee, and when you add in Messi’s wages on a five-year contract you are talking about a team spending around £300 million for Messi. But the likes of PSG, Monaco, Chelsea and Manchester City will all be lining up with their checkbooks open for the chance to sign Messi.
