Messi’s departure from Barcelona still casts a shadow over the club and president Joan Laporta returned to the matter with a strange wish: he even hoped that, faced with the impossibility of scoring him due to financial fair play, the Argentine could play … for free.

Renewal, with the player accepting a salary cut, was ready, but the league did not allow it.

“I wasn’t angry with Messi. I can’t be angry with someone who is dear to me. When it comes to the moment when both sides see that it won’t be possible, there is a certain sadness. I know he really wants to stay, but he was also very pressured by the Paris offer. [do Paris Saint-Germain]. I was hoping, at the last minute, that there would be a change and I would say: ‘Free match’. The league could have accepted it, but we cannot ask Messi to do that,” he said in an interview with RAC1 Radio.

Laporta also said that from the moment he realized Messi could not stay, there was nothing else he could do, let alone take action that could jeopardize the club’s future. “I thought I should do my best for the club and not jeopardize the institution.”

Messi came this way only through a press conference, without a final match in which he could bid farewell. “He already got the offer of PSG, everyone knows he got a very good offer. I wish I could praise him, he deserves something serious, if they want.”