Footballer Messi expected to leave Barcelona

MADRID: Footballer Lionel Messi told Barcelona he wants to leave the club on a free transfer signalling the end of an era.

The decision is expected to trigger a legal battle over a buy-out clause worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Six-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi is the record scorer at Barcelona and has won four Champions League titles.

The Argentine wants to terminate his contract unilaterally by triggering a release clause. Relations with club administration plummeted this year and speculation swirled about Messi’s departure after this month’s humiliating 8-2 Champions League quarter-final defeat to Bayern Munich, which left Barca without a trophy for the first time since 2007.

Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan are among those to have been linked to Messi, who is among the greatest players in history and has a reported weekly salary of nearly a million euros.

Barcelona has yet to react officially but Messi’s release clause expired in June and he remains under contract until the end of the 2021 season.

A Spanish sports daily said the release clause expired on June 10, but the nature of this season disrupted by the coronavirus opened the way for Messi to be released from his contract now. “It’s the first step towards opening negotiations over his departure, on the basis of which his release clause amounts to 700 million euros,” the daily reported.

Messi joined Barcelona’s youth academy at the age of 13 and made his debut in 2004 aged 17 before going on to score a club record 634 goals.

His future was thrown into serious doubt by the 8-2 loss to Bayern, the first time the club had conceded eight goals in a game since 1946. The defeat has sparked drastic changes as coach Quique Setien was sacked after barely six months in charge and sporting director Eric Abidal was also dismissed.

Messi met with new coach Ronald Koeman last week and said he saw himself “more out than in” at the club. Koeman has vowed to “fight to put Barca back on top” and was hopeful Messi would remain at the club for several more years.

Barcelona defender Gerard Pique said the club needs changes. “Nobody is untouchable, least of all me. Fresh blood is needed to change this. We’ve hit rock bottom.”

As his relationship with the club hierarchy grew increasingly strained, Messi led the fightback from Barcelona players over a dispute with the board in March regarding pay cuts during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Respect and admiration, Leo. All my support, friend,” tweeted Barca great Carles Puyol, a long-time former teammate of Messi. Vidal also tweeted: “When you shut a tiger in a cage he doesn’t give in, he fights back.”