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Messi told Barcelona last week that he wanted to leave and the two sides are in dispute over the terms of his contract.
Last Updated: 09/03/20 8:37 pm
1:48
Sky Sports News reporter Gary Cotterill is in Barcelona with the latest on Lionel Messi’s future. Is the club softening its position with the player?
Lionel Messi’s father and agent, Jorge, continued talks with Barcelona on Thursday about his son’s future.
Messi senior arrived in Barcelona on Wednesday morning and reportedly held exploratory talks with the club’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, and the rest of the board.
Messi told the club last week that he wanted to leave and the two sides are in dispute over the terms of his contract.
Jorge arrived at his son’s home earlier on Thursday, according to Sky Sports News reporter Gary Cotterill, but spent only an hour there. Luis Suárez, Messi’s friend and Barça teammate, also visited, apparently to play futsal and paddle tennis.
Messi has been visited by his friend and teammate Luis Suárez
Messi no longer considers himself a Barcelona player and did not attend training for the third day in a row.
The club had been fining Messi 100,000 euros (£ 89,000) a day for his absence and for missing a COVID-19 test, but Bartomeu has softened his stance, saying the 33-year-old will not be fined and that they are going to give you some. days off to consider your options.
“I hope he stays in Barcelona”
Aside from legions of Barcelona fans, one man who is not interested in seeing Messi reach the Premier League is Liverpool left-back Andy Robertson.
When asked about the ongoing saga, the Scotland captain, who has had one or two clashes with Messi in the Champions League, had a humorous response to journalists: “I hope it doesn’t happen, of course,” said Robertson. .
1:03 Liverpool’s Andy Robertson hopes Lionel Messi won’t leave Barcelona for Manchester City, but says the ‘uncertainty’ of the situation is clear
“From a completely selfish point of view, I hope he stays at Barça. Look, he is one of, if not the best player who has ever played, so going to one of your closest rivals is never a good sign!
“Liverpool have ruled out that they are going to sign him, so I do not want him near the Premier League.
“If he comes to Prem, we will fix it, it would be great if the guys played against him. I have played against him twice and they were the most difficult games I have played.”
What power does Messi snr have?
South American soccer expert Tim Vickery:
“He’s a bit like his son in the sense that he’s hard to read, he’s not someone I’d like to play poker against. But I think the main power here is with Lionel.
1:08 South American soccer expert Tim Vickery told the Transfer Talk program that Argentine media consider Manchester City to be in pole position to sign Lionel Messi.
“It is Lionel, who is 33 years old, who unfortunately for all of us is closer to the end than the beginning of his career, and it is Lionel who really wants to spend the last years of his first-class career in an environment where he feels respected by the people who run the club he plays for.
“He wants to feel like he’s in a competitive environment where he can have a chance to win the Champions League, so I think the power is not in the father, but in the son.”
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