Se queda?
Lionel Messi is now more likely to stay at Barcelona than leave this summer, according to a report from Martin Arevalo of TyC Sports in Argentina.
He tweeted: "Tomorrow defines Messi. But there is a new scenario: there are concrete chances that the best player in the world stays until June 2021 and sees out his contract. Right now he is evaluating."
https://twitter.com/arevalo_martin/status/1301283556124221449
The leaders of the club are understood to have pleaded with Messi to stay at Barcelona for another year with the club in crisis. And despite formally telling the club he intended to leave and refusing to turn up for their first day of pre-season for medical tests, it remains a possibility that he will change his mind and remain a Barcelona player for the last season of his deal.
Everything will be decided tomorrow (Thursday), when Messi will meet with the president Josep Bartomeu and everything is thrashed out.
If Messi were to stay, it is likely that it will be heavily dependent on concrete promises for systemic change at the club, most notably Bartomeu's departure.
Whether Bartomeu will bow to that demand is tough to predict, but so far he has dug his heels in, asserting that Messi cannot leave unless a club pays his €700m release clause.
The response to this development has been mixed. There are of course those Barcelona fans relieved that the greatest ever player to grace the pitch will not be leaving as they thought, but there is another camp of fans more focused on the future. Barcelona is in great debt and Messi's departure was actually a good opportunity for them to recoup a lot of money that would go some way to stabilising the club's finances. The rebuild they so desperately need will be more difficult to implement with him at the club, some fans and journalists say.
Right now it feels like the toss of a coin but this saga that we thought could rumble on for several more weeks looks likely to come to an abrupt end with relationships tainted forever.
