Joan Laporta: I hoped Messi would offer to play for free
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Barcelona president Joan Laporta has admitted that he spent his summer thinking that Lionel Messi would have offered his services to Barcelona and would play for the Catalan giants for free, before making his move to Paris Saint-Germain.
The football world was in shock when FC Barcelona announced Messi will not continue at Barcelona the club at which he has spent 16 years and have won it all with Barcelona and also at individual level as well. Messi’s Barcelona contract ended in June but the president, the club and Messi himself were confident that an agreement will be reached and it did but it was blocked by La Liga on the financial fair play rules. This saw PSG make a quick move to acquire the Argentinean’s services reuniting him with his former teammate Neymar.
Joan Laporta was once again was asked about Messi when he was interviewed by RAC1 he said “I love him too much to be angry, But there comes a time when you see that things just cannot happen, and there was disappointment on both sides.”
“He’ll go down as the best player in the history of Barcelona and I want that to be preserved. Everything indicates that he had the PSG offer before leaving Barcelona. We knew he had a big offer.”
“When it came to making the decision, I thought I was doing the best thing for Barcelona. I hoped there would be a change and that he’d say he’d play for free, but we cannot expect a player of his level to do that.” Laporta further added.
Laporta also addressed the situation of manager Ronald Koeman
Joan Laporta said that the under fire coach Ronald Koeman has the support of the board if directors despite a difficult start to the season both in the league and in Champions League as well.
“He’ll stay, Having spoken to different people I’ve come to the conclusion that he deserves a bit of support. He’s a Barcelona fan like all of us, he loves Barcelona. He decided to come in a difficult time for the club.
“I asked him if he trusted the team and he said he did, forcefully, but that he needed time to recover the injured players. We hope that [Ousmane] Dembele can play against Valencia, [Dynamo] Kiev or Real Madrid.”
Also read: Paul Pogba hints at a return to Juventus amid contract uncertainty at Manchester United
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Waseem Shaikh
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