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Unhappy Lionel Messi missed Barcelona’s first training session of the new season today, days after his surprising announcement that he wants to leave the only club where he has played professionally.
Messi did not show up for the session, the first with Barcelona’s new coach Ronald Koeman, was highly anticipated after the 33-year-old Argentine also did not show up for a preseason medical exam on Sunday.
Reuters television footage showed players arriving for the session that began at 5.30 pm local time and Messi did not appear.
The six-time world player of the year insists he has a clause in his contract that allows him to walk away with a free transfer, a claim disputed by Barcelona and La Liga.
Messi’s lawyers plan to invoke a clause in his four-year contract, signed in 2017, that would have allowed the forward to leave the club for free if he had requested it before June 10.
They will argue that the date, nominally the end of the season, is now irrelevant after the coronavirus pandemic forced an extension of the La Liga season through August.
However, La Liga said on Sunday that the only way a club can sign the Argentine forward is if it activates a 700 million euro buyout clause.
Messi’s decision came after Barcelona failed to win a trophy last season, which ended with a humiliating 8-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Fans who waited outside the training field on Monday were divided over Messi’s decision.
“I really want Messi to stay,” Brazilian Fabio Alfredo Suárez told Reuters.
“Messi lives in my heart, it is a pity that he leaves, I wanted him to go through the main door of the club.”
Spaniard Ivan Antolín Beltrán recalled that Barça had helped Messi in the early stages of his career.
“After everything that Barça has given to Messi throughout his career, who started here as a child … they paid him for all his medicines and everything … I think his way of behaving is a bit wrong”, said.
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