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Barcelona aiming to 'build team around Lionel Messi' despite transfer request, says Ramon Planes
Barcelona's new technical director Ramon Planes insists the club are still planning to "build a team around Lionel Messi" despite his recent transfer request.
The world of football was stunned on Tuesday evening after it emerged that representatives of Messi had sent a certified fax to the Barca board outlining the Argentine superstar's wish to leave Camp Nou after 20 years.
Messi has less than a year to run on his current Barcelona contract, though he is looking to activate a clause that would allow him to leave for free this summer.
Standard Sport understands that particular clause actually expired in June, with Messi obliged to tell the club in May if he had wanted to depart.
However, the 33-year-old thinks the clause should still be applicable until the end of this month after the 2019/20 campaign was delayed and then extended as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Barcelona believe it is no longer valid, however, meaning any club wishing to sign Messi over the coming weeks would have to meet his mammoth €700million buyout clause.
Barca held their official presentation for Portuguese forward Francisco Trincao - a €31m arrival from Braga - on Wednesday morning, with Planes present and inevitably faced with questions over Messi's future.
And the Spaniard - who recently earned a promotion following the departure of Eric Abidal - insisted that the dethroned LaLiga champions are not planning for life without their iconic six-time Ballon d'Or winner as they look to instigate something of a squad overhaul following a first trophy-less season for 12 years.
"This is evidently the important news. As we've said many times, as [new manager Ronald] Koeman and the president [Josep Maria Bartomeu] have said, and in my position as technical secretary, we count on Messi for the future, just like we count on Trincao as a talent of the future," Planes said.
"We hope that he will play alongside the greatest player in history, the greatest player in the world.
"But these things happen and we hope we will come back stronger from the defeat at the end of last season, what's happened has happened.
"Our idea is to build a team around the most important player in the world."
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