Not for the first time in his career, Lionel Messi has found himself of the epicenter of political upheaval at Barcelona.
The club’s greatest player of all time is being used for points scoring in the upcoming presidential elections, which have not yet been officially set but are set to be towards the end of the 2025–26 campaign. The challenging Víctor Font has taken to deriding the current incumbent Joan Laporta for his supposed exploitation of Messi.
Font admitted that Messi’s spuriously speculated return to Catalonia would “give me goosebumps,” in an interview with this week, before quickly adding, “what we shouldn’t do is try to exploit him.” As he pointed out, “I think Laporta has done it, and he’s done it many times, and I think he’s done it wrong.
“The most recent and obvious instance [of Messi exploitation] was during the [last] elections,” Font claimed, referring to the campaign in 2021 when Laporta heavily hinted at doing everything in his power to keep the Argentine talisman at Barcelona. Within a matter of months, Messi had joined Paris Saint-Germain.
“It’s yet another example of a broken promise, and I believe Messi shouldn’t be used,” Font huffed before swiftly using him. “But Messi needs to know that the first thing I’ll do when I win the elections is pick up the phone and call him. It will be the first phone call I make.”
