Whatever the rights and wrongs of the dispute between Barcelona star Lionel Messi and vice president Javier Faus, it doesn’t reflect well on either party, the Catalan club or the presidency of Sandro Rosell.
Faus, for starters, was wrong to make public the details of personal negotiations between the club and its star player – even assuming they have indeed happened.
Barca’s vice president appears to enjoy his occasional forays into the limelight and has been outspoken on other matters in the past. This should be a lesson that he should know when to keep his mouth shut.
Having said that, the response from Messi has been completely out of proportion to the supposed offence, which caused barely an eyebrow to be raised.
Even if Messi felt a point needed to be clarified, he could have easily done so without creating so much controversy.
Instead, he launched a stinging personal attack, strongly suggesting he believes that one of his employer’s most important senior executives is, to put it bluntly, an utter fool.
It all points towards a stressed Messi lashing out and relieving some of his personal frustrations by firing an instinctive broadside to start a battle he knows only he can win, in the eyes of the vast majority of the club’s supporters.
And make no mistake, Messi is a highly frustrated man, because the last few months must have been the most challenging of his life.
On a professional level, Barca suffered a humiliation in the semi-final of last season’s Champions League, with Messi barely able to contribute against Bayern Munich as he laboured with an injury problem that has spilled over into the new campaign, severely limiting his effectiveness while Neymar gladly steals some of his thunder.
Personally, there has also been plenty for Messi to stress about, with allegations that he has evaded tax and now been party to laundering money for drug barons in Colombia.It’s no surprise he’s overreacting.
Finally, however quickly the current spat is smoothed over, it could cause long-term damage to Sandro Rosell’s presidency.
Already unpopular with a growing number of Barca fans, Rosell is immediately and inevitably identified with Faus, and an attack by Messi on his vice president will be regarded – correctly or not – as an attack by the entire dressing room on the entire Rosell regime.
