Barça: how Florentino Pérez derailed Lionel Messi’s extension

August 5, 2021 will remain a day engraved in the history of FC Barcelona. That day, the Catalan club announced the departure of its superstar Lionel Messi. Arriving at the end of his contract, the Argentinian thought of extending it, but his long-time club ultimately did not have the financial means necessary to retain him. Today, the Catalan newspaper Sport revealed the reasons that pushed Joan Laporta to become the president of Barça who made the best player in the history of Culés leave. Stuck in financial difficulties, Laporta meets with Javier Tebas and Jaume Roures to discuss an agreement with the CVC investment fund. Like what was done in France, CVC promised a substantial inflow of money, enough to allow Barça to finance the extension of Messi. A month later, Tebas announced that all La Liga clubs except Real Madrid had accepted the deal with CVC. The only problem is that Florentino Pérez is furious at not having been informed.

In reality, Laporta thought he would keep this agreement secret to finalize Messi’s extension as quickly as possible. This was without counting on Pérez who ordered his leaders to contact Barça, judging the agreement with CVC unprofitable for the big clubs. It was then that two key executives, Ferran Reverter (CEO of Barça) and José Elias (financial support of Laporta) also learned of the existence of this deal. They then communicated their disagreement to Laporta and Elias threatened to withdraw the €40 million invested in Laporta’s campaign. Forced to backtrack to save his place as president, Joan Laporta then withdrew from the deal with CVC. As a result, he no longer had the money necessary to extend Messi, to the great dismay of La Pulga. The rest, you know it.