Barcelona President Fire Fights, Messi Enrique Clash Unresolved, Early Elections To Resolve Crisis

Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu has categorically stated that Lionel Messi has a contract with the club till 2018 and both parties will honour it until it expires. He also emphatically told the media present on the occasion that Messi is happy with the club and will undoubtedly stay on.

There were wide spread speculations that things were not right between Lionel Messi and the manager Luis Enrique. The bone of contention is the system that the manager is playing the team in. The first reports of the rift started in last November when the Argentine was first linked to be moving away from the Catalan club. Enrique diffused the tension then by coming out and clarifying in the media that Messi was delighted to be at Barcelona.

Right now Luis Enrique is cornered after his closest ally the sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta was sacked last Monday. This was partly as a fall out of his mishandling of the transfer ban that Barcelona is facing and partly because he failed to get a grip on the rift between the Messi and Enrique.

Speculations escalated when Messi missed practice after the defeat against Real Sociedad and subsequently started following Chelsea on social media. When the media hounded Enrique about the situation he failed to suggest that everything was fine inside the camp. "I neither confirm nor deny those reports. The things that are part of the team always remain in the changing room," Enrique said.

Meanwhile the club have preponed their presidential elections that were due in 2016 to the end of this season. A fresh mandate would be needed for the club to take major decisions as things are not looking rosy on a lot of fronts. It has also been reported that former Barcelona president Joan Laporta will be fighting the elections. One of the changes that he has promised the voters is to bring back Pep Guardiola to Nou Camp.

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