Barcelona all-time great Lionel Messi returning to the Catalan giants is “unrealistic,\u201d the club’s president Joan Laporta said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old Argentine superstar made a surprise appearance at Barca’s Camp Nou stadium on Sunday night and said he hoped “one day I can return, and not just to say goodbye as a player, as I never got to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi, Barca’s record goalscorer and appearance maker, left for Paris Saint-Germain in 2021 after two decades there because their precarious financial position meant they could not afford to keep him.<\/p>\n
“Out of the utmost respect for Messi, the professionals at the club, Barca, and the Barca club members, I believe that now, for me to make speculation that is unrealistic, nor do I think is fair, well, I believe that is not appropriate,” Laporta told Catalunya Radio.<\/p>\n
The president, who was in charge at the time of Messi’s departure, said he did not regret what happened because “Barca is above everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laporta confirmed he would love to hold a match in homage to Messi’s career at the rebuilt Camp Nou, once it is fully open.<\/p>\n
“Things didn’t end the way we would have liked… if, in some way, this tribute can make up for what wasn’t done, I think it would be a good thing,” explained Laporta.<\/p>\n
“It would be right that he has the best tribute (match) in the world, and it would be wonderful to have it here, in front of 105,000 fans,” he continued.<\/p>\n
The president said Inter Miami forward Messi’s surprise visit to the stadium on Sunday was a “spontaneous” display of his love of the club.<\/p>\n
Messi is currently in Spain with the Argentina national team, where they are training before a friendly against Angola.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcelona all-time great Lionel Messi returning to the Catalan giants is “unrealistic,\u201d the club’s president Joan Laporta said Wednesday. The 38-year-old Argentine superstar made a surprise appearance at Barca’s Camp Nou stadium on Sunday night and said he hoped “one day I can return, and not just to say goodbye as a player, as I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57122,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57120\/revisions\/57122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}