Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi does not intend to stay a minute longer as the latest reports suggested that the Argentine's camp has reached an agreement with City Football Group (CFG), owner of Manchester City. If the deal pushes through, Messi will end his career with CFG and the Catalan giants will be £623 million richer.
The numbers correspond with the transfer fee that the La Liga side will demand from the team that will acquire Messi this summer, and it appears that City will be that organization. CFG's contract offer will tie the Barca captain to a five-year deal with the company and will make him the highest football player on the planet.
Messi's payment will come in the form of equity stakes in CFG and while no specific figures were reported, the Daily Record said the star's wage is expected to exceed the salary he is getting from Barcelona, estimated to be around £500,000 per week.
The terms of the agreement will see Messi wearing the City shirt for at least three years starting in the upcoming season then he could spend the last two years with MLS club New York City FC, also owned by CFG. This is in line with the reports that the iconic forward wishes to collaborate anew with City manager Pep Guardiola.
It is believed that the Argentine is optimistic that his stint in the Premier League with Guardiola will give him a better shot at winning titles in the last years of his football. Messi has made clear in the past that he wants to win the Champions League again and getting his hands on a Premier League title or two would not be so bad.
In City too, Messi seemed more confident of adding another Ballon d'Or to his collection of personal honors.
According to Give Me Sport, the football star is looking forward to continue with his winning ways as part of Guardiola's side in English football.
"Messi thinks Guardiola took the best football out of him, and he wants to repeat that," the same report quoted a source, described as part of Messi's circle, as saying.
The deal, however, will only play out with the expressed consent coming from Barcelona and the Spanish club appeared unwilling to make it hard for Messi to abandon his existing contract with Camp Nou. The latest from the Catalans indicated that the only way the superstar can walk away for free is to skip the season altogether.
Such a condition only highlighted Barcelona's intention to keep Messi with the club for as long as possible. This aligns with the recent statement made by Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu that he's not going down in history as the Barcelona chief who lost Lionel Messi.
The offer, however, from CFG is one that is hard to ignore, specifically for a football club that has been losing money in the past months, which is the case of Barcelona.
