A BROKEN HOME
The World Cup may have eluded him, but Lionel Messi can console himself with four Champions League crowns, 10 La Liga titles, six Copas del Rey, three UEFA Super Cups, three FIFA Club World Cups and eight Spanish Super Cups. No one has matched the Argentine forward’s six Ballons d’Or among a list of major individual prizes that stretches into three figures.
The firsts keep on coming by the month, too: the first player to net in 16 consecutive seasons in the Champions League; the first player to contribute 1,000 goals and assists in his senior career. In June, he scored the 700th goal of his professional career with a Panenka penalty against Atletico Madrid.
But despite the trophies and the accolades, Barcelona’s greatest ever player – still the best in La Liga, aged 33 – is so unhappy with his club of 20 years that he genuinely asked to leave in the summer. And he’s still fed up.
It’s a sore, complex subject. Asked for his opinions on the current situation at Barça, long-time midfielder Sergio Busquets said, “If I stopped to give my opinion thoroughly, we could be here for five or six hours.”
“WE WERE UPSET THAT MESSI DECIDED TO STAY – WE KNEW THERE’D BE MORE WAGE CUTS SIMPLY TO COVER HIS SALARY”
Messi, usually the quiet one – in public, at any rate – has been guarded about what he says out loud. ‘Lionel cries, but not publicly,’ has been the oft-repeated line. In 2020, he has seemingly become more self-confident, emboldened and annoyed, and dropped his guard on several occasions with outspoken comments which let the public know exactly how he was feeling.
Messi’s deep disquiet stems from the way Barça were run under their former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who resigned – along with the club’s entire board – to widespread mockery in late October. Earlier that month, more than 20,000 Barcelona members had signed up to force an imminent referendum on his future – one he would surely have lost, and had unsuccessfully tried to delay.
The night before his departure, a defiant Bartomeu had declared that walking away from the Camp Nou had “never crossed my mind”, only to perform a U-turn and leave.
Messi, no longer a callow youngster – the captain of Argentina and Barcelona – is well aware of his status and unafraid to take on his superiors. In September, after losing his battle to leave Barça, he labelled Bartomeu’s leadership “a disaster” – and that wasn’t the first time he’d called him out in public. The former president’s exit will have satisfied him, no doubt – but enough to change his mind? That’s still very much on the table.
As part of this feature, FourFourTwo spoke to a string of figures at the heart of the issue, on and off the record. As we got closer to the club, everything went off the record – people’s livelihoods are at stake.
But what some of them were prepared to say surprised us.
WHEN THE MONEY GOES
“We were upset when Messi decided to stay,” one professional – not a player – who works in the Camp Nou offices told us. “Everyone was. We knew there would be more cuts and there were, simply to pay Leo’s wages. I love him and what he has done for our club and for football, but I love my family and having a job more.”
More than once, Messi has felt
