Lionel Messi completed a free transfer to Paris Saint-Germain during the summer transfer window after Barcelona failed to agree on a contract extension with him.
The Spanish outfit could not renew the 34-year-old’s contract because of the salary restrictions imposed by the Spanish league authorities.
Barcelona are under a debt of around €1.4 billion and their financial situation meant that they could not comply with the salary regulations.
La Liga president Javier Tebas has now revealed that Barcelona could have kept Messi at the club if they did not sign the likes of Memphis Depay and Sergio Aguero.
Tebas has also claimed that if Barcelona had agreed to sign the CVC agreement they would have had money to renew Messi’s contract.
“I had dinner at Laporta’s house and he agreed to sign the CVC agreement,” Tebas, who believes Real Madrid president Florentino Perez forced Barca to pull out of the deal, told Cope.
“I didn’t know if Messi could renew because of that, but later I got a call [from Laporta]. ‘Can we accelerate the CVC deal? The kid [Messi] is getting nervous,’ he said.
“I told him: ‘The day it comes out, Florentino is going to try and burst it.’ And Laporta told me: ‘No, no, I have character.’ Florentino’s behind it all, I have no doubt.
“There was an agreement that if [Barca] signed the CVC deal, they could have put 15% of the money towards signing players. In my opinion, they could have signed Messi.
“Laporta signed players like Memphis, Aguero… if he didn’t sign those players, Messi could continue.”
The CVC agreement would have allowed the Spanish league authorities to sell 10% of their business to the private investment firm. This would have resulted in revenues of around €270 million for Barcelona but Joan Laporta refused to sign the deal eventually.
Apparently, the Barcelona president had agreed to sign the CVC deal before Real Madrid president Florentino Perez changed his mind.
