What Barcelona fans feared has become a reality, Lionel Messi is officially asking to leave Barcelona and confusing the accounts of the administration that will face the most difficult issue in the club's modern history.
The cruel defeat by Bayern Munich 8-2 in the quarter-finals of the Champions League sparked a revolution in Barcelona that began with the sacking of coach Quique Setien and the signing of Dutchman Ronald Koeman.
That moment was the beginning of the public speaking about Messi's desire to leave Barcelona, and that news was met with always questioning of its validity, given the player's connection to a contract with Barcelona that includes a penalty clause of 700 million euros.
However, today's news confirms that the player made his decision and will not back down, and here the question arises, why did he make this decision, and what are the reasons for the possible divorce between the two parties?
The administration - led by President Josep Maria Bartomeu - is considered the most prominent opponent of Messi in these circumstances and the main reason for the decision to leave. Big sums of money over the past years.
Messi was also one of the most prominent opponents of the decision to abandon former coach Ernesto Valverde, and during the past months he entered into direct conflict with former football director Eric Abidal after the latter's statements in which he accused the players of neglecting training.
After the defeat against Bayern, other factors came together that accelerated the decision to leave, the most prominent of which was the meeting with the new coach Ronald Koeman, who showed clear severity and said that he would not grant privileges to any player in the team.
Unlike all previous coaches who flirted with Messi, Koeman chose in his first press conference to send an indirect message to the player when he said that he would only work with those who were convinced to stay with the team.
The way Coman dealt with striker Luis Suarez - who is Messi's closest friend - was "the straw that broke the camel's back."
And Spanish sites confirmed that the Argentine star was angry at the way Suarez was informed of the decision to dispense with his services without respecting what he had provided to the club in past years.