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Messi was a cash incinerator at Barcelona, says West Ham chieftain

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Lionel Messi‘s exit from Barcelona  prompted a plethora of reactions with everybody having their say, with West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady weighing in with a harsh criticism of the club.

Brady pointed to the money that Messi was on at the Catalan club as unjustifiable and surely having played a role in their inability to keep him, as well as their financial struggles more generally.

“Lionel Messi might have been the greatest player of all time but at a reputed 70 million euros per year he was a cash incinerator,” wrote Brady in her column in The Sun.

“He was, it is said, prepared to halve that wage in a new deal but still had to head for Paris.

“The job as hatchet man has fallen to club president Joan Laporta. He blames the whole mess on his predecessor, Josep Maria Bartomeu who resigned last year when it became clear he had floored the Catalan giants.”

Brady harshly criticises Barcelona’s descent into disaster, blaming mismanagement by Josep Maria Bartomeu‘s board and a surplus of pride which led to the club overspending on an unsustainable scale.

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However, for Brady, the real story in all this mess, something a little more positive, was Pique’s gesture to help the club out. She praised the defender’s commitment to the team he loves and mentioned the prospect of him one day becoming president himself.

“There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as proud Catalans view the progress of PSG whose spending sprees owe little to bringing through great players of their own but rather to the well-oiled owners from Qatar Sporting Investments,” wrote Brady.

“I prefer something more organic. Which is why my headline from Barcelona  was not Messi’s  move but Pique’s  devotion.

“The guess among members is possibly in the future, the captain will be president. And that isn’t for politics, it’s for love.”

-Marca

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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