Messi is not bigger than Barcelona — Laporta insists he made right decision

Barcelona's president, Joan Laporta, has reiterated that he does not regret reneging on his promise to renew Lionel Messi’s contract, stating that the viability of the club is above everyone, including its greatest-ever player. 

Lionel Messi, still angry at Laporta over his abrupt exit from Barcelona, recently visited the Camp Nou without the Barca president’s knowledge. 

The shock visit has sparked conversations specifically about the upcoming Barcelona elections and how Messi could back Laporta’s rivals. However, the Catalan lawyer and politician insists that he made the right decision. 

“Despite how everything happened with Leo Messi's departure, I have no regrets. It's not what we all wanted, but it was not possible in that moment. The club is above everyone else,” he said, per Barca Times.

Joan Laporta campaigned in 2021, promising to keep Lionel Messi at Barcelona, and in the months after his election, he repeatedly said a new deal was “going well.” However, public reassurances collided with the club’s dire finances. 

By August 2021, Barca openly explained they had reached an agreement with Messi but could not register the contract under LaLiga’s strict salary-cap rules, meaning the club could not legally fit Messi’s wages into the 2021/22 accounts.

Laporta blamed the previous administration’s mismanagement (Josep Bartomeu’s) for the financial implosion and stressed that keeping the club solvent was paramount. This resulted in Messi’s emotional and abrupt exit that summer, despite Laporta’s earlier promises. 

The fallout has left a long-running rift. Messi and members of his family have been publicly reported as still “very, very angry” about how that departure was handled, and former Barcelona officials have directly criticised Laporta for the breakdown in talks. 

Laporta has since said he wants to stage a formal tribute to Messi once the renovated Camp Nou is fully open and that relations have “more or less recovered.” Still, sources close to Messi and the recent “shock” visit by the Argentine to the under-construction Camp Nou show the wound has not fully healed.