Laporta: I hoped Messi would offer to play for free

Joan Laporta has admitted that he spent the summer hoping that Lionel Messi would have offered his services to Barcelona for free, prior to his move to Paris Saint-Germain.

Messi's contract at the Camp Nou ended at the end of June, though negotiations continued beyond that and it had looked as though the former Barcelona captain would stay at the club, only for a dramatic late turn leaving him unable to sign a new deal with the club he had spent his entire career with.

"I love him too much to be angry," Laporta said of Messi during an interview with RAC1. "But there comes a time when you see that things just cannot happen, and there was disappointment on both sides.

"There was a desire for him to stay, but pressure because of the offer he had. He knew that he'd go to PSG if he didn't stay.

"He'll go down as the best player in the history of Barcelona and I want that to be preserved. Everything indicates that he had the PSG offer before leaving Barcelona. We knew he had a big offer.

"When it came to making the decision, I thought I was doing the best thing for Barcelona. I hoped there would be a change and that he'd say he'd play for free, but we cannot expect a player of his level to do that.

"We have a very good relationship. I knew that if we recovered financially we would compensate him, but we couldn't make demands knowing the offer he had in Paris."

Laporta went on to talk about the ongoing contract talks with Sergi Roberto, suggesting that he could yet renew his contract at the club. He then turned his attention to under-fire boss Ronald Koeman, showing him a rare bit of support.

"He'll stay," Laporta said. "When things happened that we didn't want, we were all a little discouraged.

"Having spoken to different people I've come to the conclusion that he deserves a bit of support. He's a Barcelona fan like all of us, he loves Barcelona. He decided to come in a difficult time for the club.

"I asked him if he trusted the team and he said he did, forcefully, but that he needed time to recover the injured players. We hope that [Ousmane] Dembele can play against Valencia, [Dynamo] Kiev or Real Madrid."

With the Catalans planning renovation work at the Camp Nou, Laporta is keen to do as Real Madrid did with Valdebebas and play at the Estadi Johan Cruyff while works are ongoing.

"I like the idea of going there," Laporta said. "It will be for one season at most. Season ticket holders will have their tickets rotated between them.

"There's also the option of Montjuic, but I'd like the Johan."

Despite their well-documented financial troubles, Barcelona have been linked with making a sensational move to bring Neymar back to the Camp Nou on a number of occasions since his 2017 departure.

"As the numbers were explained to us, we thought there was room to do it," Laporta said. "They told us that he wanted to come and that he couldn't continue there, having convinced the club [to let him leave].

"But it's football and whoever makes the best offer wins. Not signing him has been a good thing, it wouldn't have helped."

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