'Not worried about Manchester City trying to buy Lionel Messi'

Javier Tebas; Lionel Messi (Pic/AFP)

La Liga president Javier Tebas has said that he is not worried about Manchester City being the only club showing interest in buying Argentine striker Lionel Messi.

Tebas also said that La Liga would not be affected if Messi ends up leaving Barcelona as the league has been okay even when Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar left.

Earlier this year, Messi and Barcelona had a bad fallout as the Argentine striker wanted to leave the club, but in the end, he stayed with the club as he did not want to settle matters with the club in court.

At that time, Manchester City was linked with Messi, and the Premier League club was the frontrunner to avail the services of the Argentine striker.

"We would prefer Messi to stay in La Liga but Ronaldo and Neymar left and we have not noticed any difference. We are ready. It seems the only club in the Premier League that talks about registering Messi is Manchester City, who compete outside the rules. I am not the only one saying this," Goal.com quoted Tebas as saying.

"I am not too worried about them. I have criticised what they do so many times. Doing it one more time makes no difference. City is neither affected by Covid nor pandemics or anything because they are financed differently and it is impossible to fight against that," he added.

Tebas also came in support of former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who resigned after a turbulent 2019-20 season that saw the club fail to win a trophy.

Barcelona's financial difficulties have become a topic of public discussion but Tebas said that Bartomeu cannot be blamed for these debts.

"Barcelona are not considering insolvency proceedings. Their debt might be slightly larger but they were perfectly solvent pre-COVID. But COVID has come along and taken away a lot of revenue. They are not so capable of repaying the debt, so their salary volume has to go down," said Tebas.

"That is the essential factor for most clubs. It is not because they were mismanaged earlier," he added.

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