Barça and Messi will take legal action against 'El Mundo' newspaper

BarcelonaLeo Messi's entourage knew shortly after curfew on Saturday night that El Mundo would publish the Argentine striker's contract with Barça on the cover of Sunday's edition. The six-time Golden Ball award winner had little time to prepare for the avalanche of reactions that provoked the scoop from the same newspaper that he had denounced in 2015 for publishing information about an alleged tax crime in the organization of charity-friendly matches. "A pharaonic contract that ruins Barça". "The day Messi confiscated Barça". "An agreement made on their knees". These are the big headlines he read along with the revelation of the deal he signed with Bartomeu's board at the end of 2017. These points of view may hurt him even more than the fact that it has been published that he can get paid up to 138 million euros gross per season. "I'm tired of always being a problem at the club", Messi said in mid-November. Two months later, and having activated the countdown on his continuity, the sentences retains all its meaning.

Nevertheless, the Argentine will not stand by and, as confirmed by the ARA, he plans to take -again- legal action against El Mundo for having published confidential documents to which only a few people had access. In this sense, he wants the origin of the leak to be investigated; which comes in the middle of the season, without a president in the Camp Nou box, and a few days after Barça made public the economic memory of the 2019/20 course, which illustrates a skyrocketing debt of the entity due to the pandemic and the mismanagement of recent years. The Barça itself has also made an appearance, issuing a statement on Sunday at noon that "categorically denies any responsibility in the publication of this document [referring to the contracts] and will take appropriate legal action against the El Mundo for any damages that may be caused as a result of this publication". Likewise, the club expresses its "absolute support" for Messi in what it interprets as an "attempt to discredit his image and spoil his relationship with the entity where he has been formed athletically".

Tusquets, in the spotlight

In spite of this public position, in the azulgrana offices they are worried more about how El Mundo has accessed the contract than about the content of the information in itself, since it was already more or less known. Some internal voices point, although without hard evidence, to the figure of Carles Tusquets, who a few months ago, in an interview with RAC1 radio station, said he would have sold Messi when he sent the burofax to force his departure. The president of the azulgrana management company, -one of those responsible for the fact that elections could not be held within the deadlines set by the statutes- has hit the news in recent days for his epistolary rifirrafe with the candidate Joan Laporta in relation to the possible signing of Eric Garcia.