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Watch the interview with Lundh on the player.
Lionel Messi confirmed this Friday that he will stay in Barcelona for one more year.
In an interview with TV4 Nyheterna Live, Olof Lundh from Fotbollskanalen reacted to the message.
– It puts a lot of pressure on Bartomeu, says Lundh.
On Friday Lionel Messi confirmed that he will remain in Barcelona next season. The Argentine announced that he wanted to leave, but that he had no choice but to pay his release clause of 700 million euros (7,250 million crowns) while harshly criticizing the club’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu.
Football channel columnist Olof Lundh visited TV4 Nyheterna Live to react to the news that Messi will stay in Barcelona.
– In fact, it was rumored even before he had been converted, and it is probably this clause that he was not okay with. All Spanish players have a release clause in their contracts, and Messis is unusually high at SEK 7.2 billion. Messi was going to resign before June 10 and he didn’t. He has claimed that he might resign from the latter in light of the crown crisis, but I suppose he has not received enough support for that from either the league or the lawyers. So after all, now he decided to stay. But he saw the club’s leadership and especially the president as a whole in this. He does not want to sue the club, but he is not happy with the way he is doing it.
He says he does not want to drag the club into a lawsuit and that he believes President Bartomeu is a disaster. How can you stay in a club if you feel like this?
– Yes, it goes without saying. That is because you are stuck in a contract. You can’t just go, it has almost a billion in annual salary. So you can’t do what you want. A contract carries obligations and the obligation is to stay.
– But on the other hand, he has been clear that he is unhappy. Back in March, he expressed that he was unhappy with sports director Eric Abidal, who was now allowed to leave, because he pointed out the players because they did not want to lower their salaries. Then there is great dissatisfaction with the Barcelona president, and when Messi now comes out like this, he puts a lot of pressure on Bartomeu, and then he may not survive it.
– It will be exciting, especially now that we have a Swedish assistant coach in Barcelona in Henrik Larsson for Ronald Koeman, who is the new coach in Barcelona. Now they can stay with Lionel Messi for at least a year, and then maybe if there is a little better management in the club and if he gets rid of the president, maybe he can stay longer. Because he still talks about the love for the club that has made his career and has been there for 20 years. But he probably had no choice, simply.
How do you think the fans in Barcelona will receive this message?
– I think they will be happy. His anger has not been directed at Lionel Messi, but at the president. So I think they will be happy and that they will do everything possible to convince Messi to stay at the Camp Nou and play for Barcelona. But there is a long way to go before we know if it will be like this, but now we know that it will stay one more season. He has a contract for one more year and after that he is free to go. So there is no chance that the club will stop him. So next summer you are free to go, if you want.
How can the atmosphere in Barcelona be after this?
– Not good. They applauded together in the league game over the summer and they haven’t done well at all. They didn’t take a title this year, which is unusual. Ronald Koeman, the new coach, has announced that Luis Suárez, who is a good friend of Messi and the other day Ivan Rakitic also disappeared to Sevilla, will leave. There is a purge in the club and there is a lot of politics in such a big club. Among other things, it turned out that the president had hired a public relations agency to use social media to dirty players. So, it is more than football in the club that he likes to talk about being more of a club.
Do you think Koeman and Larsson have a chance to reverse this trend and make Barcelona a champion team again?
– They certainly have the opportunity to do so. Above all, it is definitely a fantastic challenge for them and it will be exciting to follow how things are going with Bartomeu and Messi. Henrik Larsson and Ronald Koeman are not setting the table.
