Lionel Messi has had an exemplary footballing career ever since making his debut for Barcelona as a 17-year-old in 2005 and has won every club trophy. But if it is one thing that he has constantly maintained, it is that he will eventually return to Argentina and play for his boyhood club Newell’s Old Boys.
With news of Messi’s recent contract rejection making the rounds in the media, many assumed this was the course of action he planned to follow through once his contract expired in June 2018.
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But a key point to note here was that this news was broken by Madrid-based newspaper, Marca, who claimed that Messi had rejected a contract extension in July, citing the reason as his own going tax fraud and legal issues; his father and him were handed a 21 month suspended sentence by a Spanish court after being found guilty of 3 counts of tax fraud.
Marca also claimed that while Messi had every intention of fulfilling his current contract, it is unclear what would happen after that. But now, other newspaper outlets in Spain, including Barcelona-based paper Sport are alleging that Marca published the rumour as an 'act of revenge' against the Catalans and Messi.
Sport act as a mouthpiece for Barcelona and in the wake of the Messi story, reported that the club wants to take the drama out of the situation and work on an extension for the player such that he can choose to leave when he wants. The intention being to renew contracts of all the key players, starting with Messi’s in January.
Sport suggests that the story was leaked because Barcelona refused to attend the newspaper’s awards gala on October 25.
The club had rejected the invitation as the award for fair play was being given to Javier Tebas, something that came just days after the LFP president criticised the attitude of the Barcelona players in the celebration of the victory at Valencia, when the Barcelona team were hit by a bottle of water thrown by Valencia's fans.
The Blaugrana subsequently decided to boycott the award ceremony – where they knew Luis Suarez would win something for being top scorer and Lionel Messi for being top player.
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The decision of Barcelona to not go to this gala is supposed to have brought about this story from Marca, which questioned Messi's future at the club. and do not wish to add fuel to the fire in a battle that they consider is useless.
Argentina newspaper Ole also questioned the story and also said that Messi’s father is going to Barcelona to negotiate a new contract for his son.
