Spanish football expert Graham Hunter feels the best move for Lionel Messi may very well be to leave Barcelona, after their Champions League exit.
Quique Setién's side fell to a humilating 8-2 defeat against Bayern Munich at the quarter-final stage on Friday night.
The result set a record for most goals in a single Champions League quarter-final tie, with questions arising over the future of a number of Barcelona's top stars.
Messi has been linked with the likes of Manchester City and Inter Milan, and Hunter explained his contract situation on OTB AM.
"Messi makes us all dream and doubt our verdicts and one of the things that keeps drawing us to him, more than lifting the Champions League which hasn't happened since Berlin five years ago, is that intermittently he'll do things that defy description, defy belief, in a a team that's staling.
"All I knew was that Bayern Munich were going to win and it was a question of margin.
"Messi's contractual situation... he's got one more year left. The get out of jail free card was one he had to activate by May, and if not activated by end of May he could leave for free.
"The odd situation now is that if the humiliation and embarrassment of what happened against Bayern Munich added to his complete lack of faith that he's working with people above and around him that can rebuild adequately and use well the last two, three, four years of his career...
"...There's a perfectly good argument that he can play very high-level football until 37, 38, in my humble opinion. But those disappear, and they become years where it's more difficult to nick away from a player, however skilled you are, to find that space that makes him the genius that he is."
Hunter expressed his belief that the high-ranking officials in Camo Nou will be reluctant to let him go now, even if it is the best option on the table for all concerned at this point.
"If he's got no faith that the people around him are going to build an era then it may be the very best thing for him, even for his club, and certainly for the neutrals, to leave.
Full time. pic.twitter.com/973E1TmV23
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) August 14, 2020
"We presume that [club president] Bartomeu is going to have such a brass neck that he stays. In time of pandemic, where large accumulations of people are forbidden, particularly in Catalunya, how [does] an emergency motion to get him out gathers force, gets the right number of votes?
"As a working thesis, probably Barcelona have Bartomeu for one more year, after which it is obligatory that he stands down. During that year Bartomeu doesn't want to add to the ignominy that he's just suffered by being the guy who sells Messi.
"What would you do if you're the guy presiding over absolute disaster and you don't want to be remembered as the guy who let Messi slip through your slippery fingers?
"You could put a massive price tag on him and, sequentially, who pays that and where is the right place for this man to go in his own mind?
"Yeah, maybe Messi's had enough, I wouldn't blame him. Whatever happens, the breakdown from here is deeply complicated."
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