Keeping Lionel Messi at Barcelona puts club at risk ‘for next 50 years’, president says

FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta has suggested that keeping Lionel Messi would have put the club at risk “for the next 50 years”.

The club announced on Thursday that the Argentine superstar, who has been at Camp Nou since 2000, would be departing after “financial and structural obstacles” made re-signing him impossible.

Laporta has now said that he was not in a position to “put the club at risk” for Messi by failing to comply with La Liga’s financial fair play rules, saying that Barcelona’s history is “above any player”.