Barcelona president Joan Laporta blames La Liga and Javier Tebas for Messi’s departure

As was predicted, the cold war between La Liga president Javier Tebas and Barcelona president Joan Laporta has started to heat up. Tebas hit out at Barça and Laporta suggesting that they were hiding something with regards to Lionel Messi’s departure and that it could have been avoided.

Naturally, Laporta has given replies to his statements in length, speaking to BarçaTV. Without holding back, the president said, “Tebas is obsessed with Barcelona.”

After that blunt opening statement, Laporta elaborated on the same, remarking that Tebas was doing things intentionally to hurt Barcelona and its principles.

“Instead if looking to resolve discrepancies politely, Tebas always looks for conflict and disagreement. He has a sick obsession to see how much he can hurt Barça and its values, we Culés already know that.”

Laporta was blamed for the departure of Messi by Tebas, and had to return the favour, calling him out for not adjusting to the league’s inflexible rules.

“Tebas says that Messi has not stayed at Barça, but he’s the main culprit. He did not stay because of this man’s pride and his fair play rules. He always wants to be the protagonist. Other leagues were more flexible with FFP, and no one else lost their best players.”

The La Liga president said in his interview that Barcelona wanted to accept the CVC deal that would have sold 50 years of TV revenue of the club. However, Laporta made it clear that it was never the plan.

“What we will not do is allow Tebas to hurt the club in ways that we can control. We will not agree to Mr. Tebas’ personal projects that only want to use Barça’s interests to make more money for himself, taking our TV rights for the next 50 years.”