Is Messi leaving Barcelona?

Recently there was a shocking event in the soccer world. FC Barcelona and their star forward Lionel Messi have one of the longest and most special relationships in the world of sports. But now after a 8-2 lose in the Champions League against Bayern Munich, is this relationship heading to its end?

Just a week after this humiliating loss, Messi notified Barcelona that he wanted to forego the last season on his contract and move clubs on a free transfer. Now this is huge. When we think Barca, we think Messi, when we think Messi, we think barca. After more than 20 years in Barca, Messi was not just a superstar within the team, but an icon. Now lets look at the logistics. In 2017, Messi signed a four-year contract with Barcelona with an astronomical $825 million release clause, meaning that any club that wanted to sign Messi before his contract expired would have to pay Barca the 825 million dollars. Messi had taken to social media earlier in the season to fire back at club director, Eric Abidal after the former player criticized the team’s performance. But, Barcelona and the La Liga is reluctant to let their star go.

This lead to more problems for Messi. He told the entire world that he wanted to leave his club, and now the only path left for him was a nasty legal battle with the club he was in since he was 13. Here is an interview with 10^th grade student Ethan “Well I think well technically Barcelona do have the right to keep Messi from leaving because his contract ends next year and also for both Barcelona and La Liga, it would be detrimental if Messi leaves for instance if Messi leaves to their biggest buyer Men City then he would be outside of La Liga, and I know that there are lots of people that watch the La Liga mainly just watch Messi so if you were to leave to another league, La Liga would face a lot of losses and Barcelona would lose it’s star player but in a perspective in whats right I feel if a player wants to leave your club then you might as well let them leave because not only will it have bad morals they probably wouldn’t try nearly as hard as they would if they were happy and settled in the club as well.”

And when asked if Messi would have more success on another team he said “Messi  wants to leave to win again but with the current Barcelona squad, they have a very old average age in their starting eleven and also they haven’t made any real new signing that would actually impact the squad as it is now, so I feel like if Mess did leave Barcelona, he actually have a greater chance of winning the Champions League or winning anything in general but with the current Barcelona squad in fact that nothing has really changed and I don’t think Messi can win anything there anymore anymore。”

Is this really the end of a 20 year relationship? Are they gonna patch this over? In the world of professional sports, everyone wants to win. Is this worth leaving his beloved club for? What do you think?