Exclusive: Marca's Lionel Messi contract story an act of revenge
Barcelona are not worried about the Argentine No 10's contract and are convinced he will renew his deal with the club
Lionel Messi was on Marca's cover on Monday for declining to renew his Barcelona contract, an idea that has captured the attention of the world, considering his deal expires in June 2018. Leo, therefore, is in the penultimate year of his contract. The club want to take the drama out of the situation and say they are working on an extention for the player that can end when he wants. The idea is to renew the contracts of all the key players and Messi's will start to be tackled from January.
Marca's front page is being interpreted from the club as revenge against Barcelona for refusing to attend the newspaper's awards gala on October 25. The club rejected the invitation because, among other reasons, they gave Javier Tebas a fair play award, something that came after the LFP president blasted Barcelona players who were attacked by Valencia fans. Barcelona broke up relations with Tebas and their first action on that was not to attend the awards - where they knew that Luis Suarez would win something for being the top scorer and Leo Messi as best player.
The club believe not going to the gala led to this front page and they do not want to put more fuel on the fire for a battle that is not helpful to them.
