A) White smoke
B) Black smoke
C) Smoke (dry)
These options could easily be the possible answers a multiple choice to the million-dollar question: is Lionel Messi returning to Barcelona? A question that intensified in the last hours after Jorge, father and representative of the best footballer in history, met this Monday at noon in Spain with Joan Laporta, president of the Catalan club.
As Clarín was able to find out, it is still too early to lean towards the first two options. Therefore, the valid answer for these hours - it is insisted, for these hours - is option C. Why? First because Barcelona assures that it has the financial viability plan approved by LaLiga of Spain, something that has not yet been officialized. And second, above all, because Jorge Messi left Laporta's house, steps from the Camp Nou, without any formal offer in his hands.
Why was there no formal offer? Precisely because the viability plan, which involves the reduction of the wage bill by about 200 million euros, is not yet official. And, in addition, because at the moment in which the agreement is signed, if it is ever signed, the return of Messi is much more complex than blowing and making bottles.
Jorge Messi leaves the meeting with Joan Laporta.
That is, it is not enough for Barcelona to have the green light from Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga. The club also needs to carry out a plan that includes the departure of many players with high salaries – something that already began with the departures of Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, curiously Leo's two best friends – the reduction of salaries to others who will remain to be able to register players – not only Messi – and even a restructuring of the governing body. Of course, you have to reduce expenses on all sides so that the finances fit. And that, for now, is far from being a reality.
After this bath of reality, more relegated, the expressions of desire appear. It is clear that Barcelona wants to have Messi again. Laporta himself said it and so did Xavi Hernández, the coach, more than once. He knows that it will be the key to strengthen a team that dominated in the local tournament, but that was shipwrecked at the continental level. The Champions League, winning it, is an obsession.
And the same goes for Messi, who has just finished his story with PSG. With the Champions League and also with Barcelona it is his place in the world beyond Rosario. That of him and his family, who already had to move to Paris when the Catalan club, suddenly closed the doors two years ago in negotiations that Laporta himself led to shipwreck. Therefore, as it is known that the one who burns with milk sees a cow and cries, hence the moderation of Jorge Messi.
Because it is true that he said "I would love to" when the journalists in block, at the exit of Laporta's house meters from the Camp Nou, asked him about an eventual return of Leo to Barcelona. And he even said "yes" and even smiled when asked if the Catalan club is the first option for next season.
But Jorge also emphasized, however, that the eventual return of his son still "depends on a lot of things" and that there was "nothing concrete" after the talk with Laporta.
That's why the Messis listen to Barcelona. They are interested in listening to them. But until there is any formal proposal they will not be packed. And there is also no decision to wait long. That is, Leo can not wait idly until August 31 arrives, the day on which the pass market in Europe will close. The previous experience of trusting Laporta, it is insisted, ended with the tearful exit and exile in Paris. There is optimism. But there is also realism.
Laporta has yet to deliver a formal offer from Barcelona. Photo: EFE
That is why, because Barcelona is plan A, there was still no yes or no to the two concrete offers that Messi has on his table to continue his career.
There is that of Saudi Arabia, unmatched from the economic, to join the ranks of Al Hilal and be the visible face of the constellation that Saudi football intends to build in the desert by force of petrodollars and that already has Cristiano Ronaldo as an advance.
And there is the United States, with David Beckham's Inter Miami as interested to reach Major League Soccer. It is a proposal that he received some time ago and that does not displease, beyond the fact that the amounts are much lower than those proposed by the Saudi checks.
Decisive hours are coming. Messi will soon join the Argentine National Team for the tour of Asia, where he will play with Australia in Beijing, with furor to get tickets, and with Indonesia in Jakarta. However, he will not stop thinking for a minute about his future. He doesn't want time to pass too much. He wants, like almost everyone, to be certain about where he will spend, at least, the next year of his life.
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