Lionel Messi’s departure from Barcelona was largely due to wage arrears.

Barcelona will now have to pay Messi for the next two years.

Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia published an interview with Barcelona president Joan Laporta on Wednesday, revealing that the club will have to pay Messi through 2025.

Laporta pledged to keep Messi at Barcelona as a campaign promise during his presidential election in 2021, but the Argentine eventually left the club that summer to don a PSG shirt after 20 years at the club after failing to agree a new contract.

At issue at the time was the club’s enormous debt from the mismanagement of his predecessor, Josep Bartomeu.

It’s hard to imagine how the club managed to survive in 2019 with so much debt, but in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their revenue structure and forced Barcelona to tighten their belts by drastically reducing the salaries of their players 안전놀이터순위.

However, in the process, several players wanted to leave the team, which led to the departure of Messi, whose salary could not be reduced further.

Laporta said in an interview that the club now owes Messi a lot of money.

“What we owe Messi is the delayed payment of his salary, which was previously agreed upon by the press,” Laporta said. We are working to pay this amount by the end of 2025,” Laporta said.

He also said he “understands” Messi’s decision to leave PSG for Inter Miami (MLS) instead of Barcelona, adding, “But we had no other option. We had an agreement with La Liga that we could offer some of our resources for Messi. The plan has been ongoing.”

“I spoke with his father, Jorge Messi. He wanted Lionel to have less pressure as he was going through a difficult time at PSG. It seemed that if we chose him, he would be under more pressure and we respected his decision.”

The last part probably refers to a broadcast interview Messi gave to a broadcaster in which he said, “I felt that if I went back to Barcelona, the other players would suffer. I didn’t want that,” which Laporta spit out to back up.

Barcelona is short on money, but it quickly raises money through loans to carry out the Espai Barça project, which has been in the works for 20 years.

They will play temporarily at the Olympic Stadium in Montjuïc starting next season while their home stadium, Camp Nou, is renovated. The team’s salaries are still in question, so it’s important to finish the Espai Varsa project quickly and normalize the salary structure.