Lionel Messi has told Barcelona he wants to leave the club after nearly two decades with the Spanish giants.
The club confirmed to the Associated Press on Tuesday that the Argentine sent a document expressing his desire to leave.
The announcement comes 11 days after Barcelona’s humiliating 8-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals, one of the worst defeats in the player’s career and in the club’s history.
The defeat capped a difficult season for Barcelona – the first without a trophy since 2007-08 – and ignited one of its worst crises ever.
Messi has won a record six Ballon d’Or awards during his time at Barcelona as the top player in the world, and has helped the club win 10 Spanish league titles and four Champions Leagues.
Former Barcelona captain Carles Puyol reacted to the news that Messi wants to leave, tweeting: “Respect and admiration, Leo. All my support, friend.”
Last week, Barcelona’s new head coach Ronald Koeman said he wants Messi to remain at the club.
Koeman said: “I don’t know if I have to convince Messi (to stay). Of course he is the best player in the world and you want the best player in the world in your team – you don’t want him playing against you.
“For me as a coach, I would love to work with Messi because he wins matches. If he is at the ability and the level he has always shown, I would be more than happy for him to stay.
“He’s still got a contract and he is still a Barcelona player. There are some older players in the team and we need to make some decisions but in Messi’s case, I hope that he stays with us.”
“The facts of the matter are that he has a release clause in his contract of €700m so, whether he wants to leave or not, who can afford €700m?
“However, there is a clause within that contract that says Messi can leave for free at the end of every season, should he decide that he wants to leave Barcelona, so you would think then that Messi is available for no money at all.
“However, there is a little bit of confusion with this one because Messi will say the season has finished late and, under the contract, the season finishes and I can leave for free.
“But Barcelona will say this is an exceptional circumstance that the season got extended and they will refer to when the season would have ended before, which would have been in May or early June.
“They will say that is when the clause expires, so the £700m release clause becomes active once more.
“Until they sort that out, Messi can say I want to leave Barcelona, he can express his desire to leave but, until this release clause issue gets sorted, and whether he can actually leave for free, you have to wonder who can actually pay €700m to buy Messi?”
“The bigger picture here is almost a war between Messi and the Barcelona board. He has fallen out with them, he wants out of the club, he is not happy with the direction the club has been led in.
“The important thing is – will he get his way? Will he be able to force his way out of Barcelona? That is the first hurdle he has to clear. The second hurdle is, can he find a club who can afford to pay him?
“When you think about it, how many clubs are there in the world that can afford to pay Messi the kind of money he’s on?
“In the current economic climate, I cannot see another club in the world that can afford to match the money he’s on at Barcelona.
“But – who could afford it?
“Yesterday, the Man City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak accepted that normally, they sign players aged between 20 and 25, but they were willing to make an exception this summer to buy somebody who is a bit more experienced.
“Messi is 33, does that mean Man City are interested in signing him?
“PSG could afford to sign him as well. They have Kylian Mbappe, they have Neymar – and spent £200m getting him out of Barcelona – would they want to Messi as well?
“When you’re looking at his situation, I don’t think it’s done and dusted that he’s going to leave Barcelona just because he sent a letter saying he wanted to. It doesn’t mean the board will let him leave.
“The second problem then is where is he going to go to.
“In normal circumstances, it would be difficult but in the present economic climate, it’s almost impossible to work out who could sign him.”
