«Al Jazeera» – Sports:
Barcelona sporting director Matteo Elemani has admitted that Argentine star Leo Messi’s decision to leave the Camp Nou hurt the club economically, according to the Spanish newspaper AS.
During a conversation with students of Mathematical Business at the London School of Economics, Elimani said that Messi’s decision was not surprising: “Unfortunately, the departure of Leo Messi was not a surprise. It was the moment of truth, and the only way he might survive was if Barcelona committed to something we didn’t want to do, we decided the club was above anyone. As a result, we lost a lot commercially.”
And Elimani explained the only option available to ensure Messi’s stay in Barcelona was to agree to the deal that the CVC investment fund had with the Spanish League, which is his rejection with Real Madrid.
And Barcelona’s director of football explained that Barcelona’s failure to qualify for the Champions League next season would be a “disaster”.
He added: “The idea of not qualifying is not on my mind. (Team coach) Xavi has done really well in his first few months, and we are very happy with the work he has done so far.”
Barcelona is competing strongly to occupy one of the first four places in the Spanish League to ensure participation in the “Champions of Europe”, knowing that it is currently participating in the European League, and in the event of winning the title, this is sufficient for it to participate in the most prominent continental championship next season.
Regarding the future, Alemani did not want to offer any guarantees regarding the club’s possibility of signing Norwegian star Erling Haaland, saying that a lot of hopes were still placed on the players coming through the club’s youth academy.
“The only thing I can say is that FC Barcelona is still one of the best clubs in the world, and our goal is to always have the most competitive team, and that’s what we’re working on.”
“Signing a football player is very different from hiring any other type of employee, there are a lot of things that need to be taken into account such as the rules of financial fair play, so it is very complicated.”
He explained, “If we have to sell a player due to economic problems, the only option we will consider to compensate is to bring players from the La Masia academy who are the future of our club, but this is not in our plans at the moment.”
Last summer, Messi left Barcelona for French club Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer following 16 seasons, during which he achieved many collective and individual achievements.
