Lionel Messi celebrates scoring a third goal for Barcelona on Aug. 18, 2020.Albert Gea/Reuters
Lionel Messi is still angry with Barcelona. But, in a sudden and dramatic reversal, he said Friday that he is not prepared to go to war with Barcelona and, so, will stay after all.
In a decision he announced in an interview with the website Goal, Messi said he had withdrawn a letter announcing his intention to leave Barcelona and would stay with the soccer club that he has called home for his entire professional career.
The decision is an abrupt about-face for Messi, who informed the club in writing Aug. 25 that he would exercise a clause in his contract that allowed him to leave the club unilaterally. It also spares the team the embarrassment of losing its most beloved, and most valuable, asset without receiving a transfer fee.
But it may do little to resolve months of turmoil at Barcelona, a downward spiral that has involved coaching changes, boardroom intrigue and public bickering. The club reached a nadir with an 8-2 defeat at the hands of the German champion Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals of the Champions League last month.
The announcement came after the Spanish league had declared that a 700 million euro release clause in Messi’s contract was valid. That set the stage for an ugly legal fight between the player and the club, and Messi, in his interview with Goal, appeared to back away rather than face Barcelona in court.
“I would never go to war against the club of my life,” Messi said.
Barcelona and Messi had agreed upon a clause that would allow him to walk away without commanding a transfer fee as long as he communicated his desire to leave before the end of the season. But the havoc wrought on the soccer schedule by the pandemic meant the Spanish season did not finish until months after the date stipulated in the agreement. Messi complained that club president Josep Maria Bartomeu did not keep to the spirit of the accord and insisted that Messi stay unless suitors pay the full buyout clause, which Messi called “impossible.”
Messi said that given his relationship with the club and its supporters he could not continence the idea of pursuing a damaging lawsuit to force his way out.