Spanish papers react to Joan Laporta’s press conference after pointing blame for Lionel Messi’s exit

Spain’s sports newspapers on Saturday focused heavily on Barcelona president Joan Laporta’s remarkable 90-minute press conference to explain the reasons behind Lionel Messi’s shock departure from the club, in which he was quick to point the blame elsewhere.

‘Laporta points the finger at the guilty ones’, said the front cover of Barcelona-based newspaper Sport, listing three of his main targets: former Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu, LaLiga chief Javier Tebas and the rest of the squad for refusing to take a pay cut.

Laporta had said in Friday’s press conference that predecessor Bartomeu, who resigned last October to avoid facing a vote of no confidence from the club’s members, had left him ‘a calamitous, devastating inheritance’, with the institution in debt to the tune of 1.2billion euros (£1bn). 

Mundo Deportivo highlighted Laporta saying ‘Barca is above all else’ in the press conference

Laporta had also criticised Tebas for two main reasons.

First of all, he said the league had not wanted to ‘show any flexibility’ with its financial fair play rules, which oblige all clubs to work within a salary limit according to their annual revenue.

Laporta also raged against LaLiga’s £2.3billion deal with private equity firm CVC, which was supposed to provide club’s with a cash injection to help them build for the future and was expected to help the Catalans keep Messi.

But the president said the deal, which gave the US firm 10% ownership of the league’s future television rights, ‘means mortgaging the club for 50 years’, something he was not prepared to do.

Laporta said Josep Maria Bartomeu had left him with a ‘calamitous inheritance’ of £1bn debt

He also criticised LaLiga chief Javier Tebas for being inflexible with financial fair play rules

Laporta also blamed several members of the first-team squad, without mentioning any names, for not agreeing to take a pay-cut to reduce the club’s wage bill and allow them to sign Messi to a new deal. 

The president referred to the CVC deal on many occasions during his press conference, saying that not even keeping Messi was a price worth paying for allowing a third party to buy a stake in Barca’s television rights.

And that was the theme of the front cover of fellow Barcelona paper Mundo Deportivo, who carried Laporta’s takeaway quote: ‘Barca is above all else’.

The paper also highlighted Laporta’s declaration that Messi, Barca’s captain and all-time top scorer, wanted to stay at the club but could only do so if they consented to  the CVC deal.

‘Leo wanted to stay but I’m not ready to mortgage Barca’s rights for the next 50 years, not even for the best player in the world,’ he said.

Madrid-based newspaper Marca, meanwhile, said Paris Saint-Germain were in pole position to sign the Argentine to assemble a dream front three next season of Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.

Marca said PSG were primed to sign Messi and the deal could affect Kylian Mbappe

But Marca added that Real Madrid, who are desperate to sign Mbappe, are keeping a close eye on events and are ready to pounce if the France striker, who has less than a year left on his deal with PSG, ends up wanting to move to the Santiago Bernabeu this month. 

Meanwhile, newspaper AS decided that Laporta’s press conference and Messi’s future was not the story of the day and decided to focus on Spain’s Olympic final against Brazil on Saturday.

They focused on Real Madrid’s Marco Asensio, who scored the winning goal in extra-time in the semi-final against hosts Japan.

AS put Marco Asensio on their front cover ahead of Spain’s Olympic final against Brazil