Joan Laporta explained Lionel Messi’s choice not to return to FC Barcelona this summer. For the president of the Catalan club, the season that the Argentinian had just spent at PSG above all made him want to leave far from all this harmful pressure.
President of FC Barcelona and above all a smooth talker, Joan Laporta assured for months that Lionel Messi would be welcome in the Catalan club at the end of his contract with Paris SG. The Argentinian’s regular visits to his former region fueled rumors of a comeback that would have brought smiles to everyone’s face, but that didn’t last long. Despite the meetings and the promises, the discussions were unsuccessful and the choice of the 2022 world champion was very quick. No longer wishing to extend to Paris SG, he also quickly dismissed the possibility of a return to Barça. For the moment, Lionel Messi has almost never given clear reasons for his choice, and he may do so in July during his presentation with his new club, Inter Miami.
Messi admits a difficult year at PSG
In the meantime, Joan Laporta is keen not to lose face and ensures that it is not economic management, unlike what happened in the summer of 2021, which forced Lionel Messi to look elsewhere. While the Catalan president revealed that Barça continued to pay salary arrears to his player until 2025, due to the efforts at this level made by Messi during the Covid period, Joan Laporta explained that after his adventure at PSG, La Pulga especially wanted to play in a championship without any pressure. He will be served in Major League Soccer, at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
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” We had an agreement with LaLiga that we would dedicate some of our resources to Messi’s return. This was considered in the feasibility plan. We spoke to Jorge Messi (Father Leo) about it. He told me that Leo had a difficult year in Paris and he wanted less pressure. With our plan, he would have continued to have them. I understood his decision “, delivered Joan Laporta in an interview with the newspaper La Vanguardia. So far, neither Jorge nor Leo Messi have given their version of the facts about this choice not to return to FC Barcelona, but the Argentinian clan has so far always played appeasement, even if the events of 2021 are far from having been forgotten.
