Lionel Messi Q&A: The biggest unanswered questions after the Argentine’s dramatic Barcelona exit

Both Barcelona president Joan Laporta and former club captain Lionel Messi have now said their piece but there are still plenty of unanswered questions surrounding the seismic story of the summer.

The Argentine superstar was in tears at his emotional farewell press conference as he admitted he wanted to stay at the Nou Camp, with the forward now searching for the next chapter of his spectacular career. 

PSG are pulling out all the stops to bring him to Paris, but Barcelona have thrown a spanner into the works by lodging a legal challenge to stop him heading to Paris as the fallout of his explosive exit continues.

Sportsmail looks at the biggest issues around Messi’s departure after ending his 21-year spell with the Catalan giants.  

Lionel Messi will shut the curtain on his 21-year Barcelona stay after failing to agree a new deal

There are still plenty of unanswered questions about the saga as he weighs up his next club

Can Barcelona derail Messi’s move to PSG?

Good luck to French lawyer Juan Branco who wants to bring the case to the European Commission on behalf of a group of Barcelona supporters. 

But the PSG juggernaut is unlikely to be off-roaded by claims that Barcelona’s Financial Fair Play numbers were better than PSG in the 2019-20 season. 

Difficult to see it having the legal standing to get past the first hurdle.

Barcelona’s case to stop PSG signing Messi is unlikely to make it past the first hurdle

But isn’t FFP a real issue for the French club?

They have made three different offers to Kylian Mbappe in a bid to get him to commit to the club beyond the end of this season. 

The last of those would have put him on 36m euros net a season. So far he has rejected them all because he wants to join Real Madrid. PSG could now redirect that money to paying Messi and allow Mbappe to skip off into the sunset, now, for a fee, or more likely for nothing at the end of the season. 

If they were to sign Messi AND then sign Mbappe on a new deal then perhaps the outrage across European football would be such that Uefa would have to do something but to date PSG have not really been slowed down by FFP.

PSG could sidestep FFP concerns by selling Kylian Mbappe (L), who wants to join Real Madrid

After hearing Laporta and Messi, can we now be clear about why the player is leaving?

We can be clear about why he’s leaving but what we can’t be clear about is why everyone thought he was staying until last Thursday. Messi’s dad Jorge flew into Barcelona thinking he was signing his son’s contract to stay at the club. 

Messi sent a message to Sergio Aguero saying he would see him Friday for their first training session together. The league understood that he was staying. What’s not clear is exactly what happened to change everything.

Messi and father Jorge flew into Barcelona last week with the intention of signing a new deal

But we know it’s got something to do with La Liga announcing on Wednesday that there was a new deal in place with Investment Fund CVC that would bring a 2.7 billion windfall to Spanish football?

Exactly. Barcelona at first appear to have accepted this deal. And in return La Liga were set to register Messi on a five-year contract. That’s the pact that fell apart. 

Barcelona changed their tune with president Joan Laporta saying that the CVC deal was unacceptable because in exchange for the windfall (which would have seen Barcelona get around £237m (€280m), 40m of which they would have been able to spend on players’ wages) the investment fund would be entitled to 10 percent of of La Liga TV revenue over the next 40 years. 

And it seems La Liga also changed tack saying that Messi’s five-year contract was also not acceptable (because it was understood he would only be staying for two and making it a five year deal was a mechanism for getting around the salary cap rules and if La Liga let Barca do it then everyone would be at it).

LaLiga and Barcelona changed tack on Messi’s lucrative deal after hitting financial obstacles

Messi has appeared cold with Laporta, who continually insisted that Messi would stay 

But we don’t know why Barcelona changed their mind?

One possibility is that Real Madrid had rejected the CVC agreement and Barcelona were not prepared to agree to Messi’s new contract only for the CVC money not to come through because of a Madrid veto. 

Another theory is that there were other demands on them – aside from giving up this 10 per cent of tv revenue – that were unacceptable.

Okay that’s enough numbers, let’s talk about feelings. How devastated is Messi? There were more tears than expected yesterday.

After two decades at the club it was always going to be traumatic walking away. But it was fascinating to watch in the press conference how he cheered up the more questions turned to the future. 

At one point he said ‘as soon as a I get back to doing what I love doing’ and that’s the key more than anything else he loves football. He has only won three Champions Leagues at Barca (he doesn’t count Paris because he was in the stands) he clearly wants to change that and he’s probably gone to the right place to do it.

It was always going to be traumatic for Messi to leave but ultimately his biggest love is football

Is he upset with the Barcelona president?

It was interesting that he called him ‘Laporta’ yesterday and didn’t seem to show any affection towards him. Ultimately though he feels that the Barcelona president inherited a financial disaster and his only real crime was to paint a far more optimistic picture than was real.

Why did Laporta continually say he believed Messi would stay?

At first it was because he hadn’t seen the books. Then once he’d seen the true state of Barcelona’s finances he became aware that La Liga had a something that would amount to a rescue package that would help him keep Messi. In the end the club felt it could not sign up to that package.

Will he resign?

No. The challenge now is to build the club post-Messi. Pedri needs to become the new poster-boy (once he’s had a rest) the club needs to continue cutting costs and finding new revenue streams.

Messi didn’t show affection towards Laporta (L) but admits he inherited a financial disaster

The club will now have to rebuild and want midfielder Pedri to become the next poster boy

But it won’t be easy?

They couldn’t keep Messi because they had no money, but at the same time the best way to bring in new money was by keeping Messi. The club is worth an estimated 30 per cent less to sponsors without its talisman.

One last thing: Was it ever feasible for Messi to play for free?

Maybe financially he could have done it. It would have been a year. The money he earns from sponsorship would have still poured in, perhaps even increased because of the gesture. But the club never asked for such a gesture and he never suggested it either.

As he understood it, cutting his salary by 50 per cent had been enough to make things work. ‘They club never asked for anymore,’ he said yesterday. Would he have given more if they had?

Playing for free at Barca was never an option on the table – even if Messi could have afforded it