Former FC Barcelona President Bartomeu Claims Messi Could Have Renewed

Barcelona—In a pointed interview with the Catalan daily ARA, former FC Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu has asserted that the club’s current leadership under Joan Laporta had the means to retain Lionel Messi in the summer of 2021, contradicting long-standing claims that financial constraints made a renewal impossible.

Bartomeu, who stepped down in October 2020, broke his silence to argue that Laporta’s board “inflated” the club’s pandemic-era losses to €555 million, a figure that triggered La Liga’s second audit and ultimately slashed Barça’s salary-cap allowance. “When La Liga received that news, it decided to do a second audit and considered that the losses were not these, since there were provisions worth €283 million,” Bartomeu told ARA. “But Barça decided to keep their proposal, La Liga applied it and the club lost fair play that it has not yet recovered to this day.”

The 61-year-old businessman, whose final years in charge were marred by spiraling debt and fierce scrutiny over player contracts, insisted that the outgoing administration left tools for renewal. “If they had done what had to be done, Leo Messi could have been perfectly renewed and other players could have been signed,” he said. “It wasn’t the fault of the inheritance, but of fair play because the new board inflated the losses.”

Messi, then 34, ended weeks of speculation by signing for Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer in August 2021 after Laporta reneged on an electoral promise to secure the Argentine’s continuity. The episode remains raw for supporters who believed a last-minute agreement could be struck, especially after the forward had agreed to a 50-percent wage cut.

Bartomeu also defended the terms of the deal he sanctioned in 2017, which Spanish newspaper El Mondo reported totalled €555,237,619 across four seasons. “He was paid little for what he gave, both on a sporting level and economically or commercially,” Bartomeu argued, adding that Messi “would have loved to participate in the renewal of the squad, with these young people who are there now,” in reference to emerging talents such as 16-year-old winger Lamine Yamal. “But they threw him out and it wasn’t to be.”

The timing of the remarks is significant. Laporta, re-elected for a second consecutive term a fortnight ago after defeating rival Victor Font, faces renewed questions over his handling of club icons. In March, former manager Xavi Hernández told La Vanguardia that a 2023 return for Messi—once his PSG contract expired—was “agreed” only for Laporta to halt negotiations because “he didn’t want a war” with the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner.

Bartomeu’s intervention ensures the debate over who shoulders responsibility for Messi’s departure will persist as Barcelona attempt to balance their books and restore competitive stability. For many supporters, the lingering sense of a missed opportunity remains the defining subplot of Laporta’s modern presidency.