Over the course of his career with the Bavarian club, he won five Bundesliga championships, two DFB-Pokals, and one UEFA Champions League. The latest estimate puts his worth at above €70 million as of this summer.

His new deal at the Allianz Arena was scheduled to be signed before the season’s conclusion, but negotiations have stalled since the exits of directors Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic. There are rumors that Real Madrid are interested in signing the 22-year-old defender, despite the fact that he still has two years left on his contract in Germany.

What did Alphonso Davies say regarding Barcelona?

Now he is being linked with a transfer to La Liga, although he might have gone there before. Davies has claimed that Los Blancos’ bitter rivals Barcelona passed on signing him before he was transferred to the Bundesliga.

On the ‘Say Less’ podcast, the young ace said that the Catalans had made an offer before, but the deal shockingly fell through due to his nationality.

“Barcelona approached me but the President (Josep Maria Bartomeu) didn’t want me because I’m from Canada. This was what the press said, I don’t know if the President really said that, but I’m not going to lie, it kind of crushed my feelings What is clear is that I didn’t sign for Barca”, he said.

Bartomeu’s presidency lasted six years, after taking over for Sandro Rosell in 2014, and it could be argued that his presidency was seen as a massive decline for Barcelona. While the team has won championships under Bartomeu, internal cracks started to show among the clubs’ key figures and poor results on the field led to the vote of no confidence.

In his six years in charge, Barcelona won only one Champions League, recently the club parted ways with Luis Suárez, Arturo Vidal, and Ivan Rakitic. The final nail in the coffin wasthe 3-1 defeat to Real Madrid. Here are some of the slip-ups of the Bartomeu era.

Neymar’s departure and Legal Issues

When Neymar and his representation activated his €222 million release clause to leave Barcelona for PSG in 2017, the club received payment directly from PSG rather than going through the proper channels, the sum had to be depositedto La Liga and then sent to the club. La Liga refused the initial payment as a violation of FIFA Financial Fair Play, the sum was then sent to Barcelona. The drama from the transfer resulted in court cases between the club and the player over bonuses, which Barcelona won. Nonetheless, both the player and club were put in a bad light and the transfer was seen as a type of shady deal in soccer.

Social media Barçagate scandal

The rift between the Messi clan and Bartomeu began to take shape when in 2019 it was leaked that the Barcelona board had hired a social media company called I3 Ventures to create and manage social media pages to discredit players like Messi, Suárez, Pique, and former manager Pep Guardiola. The campaign also tried to make the board lookfavorably in the realm of public opinion. It was investigated that the club paid I3 Ventures 1 million euros to conduct the social media actions.

The fallout from the scandal resulted in tense meetings between the president and key players, but ultimately, for the time being, the scandal had cold water poured on it, but it began to show a rift between the board and some of the Barcelona players who had been with the club a long time, namely Lionel Messi.

Paying over 100 million Euros for Dembelé, Coutinho and Griezmann

Barcelona’s recent big-money transfers have to be considered flop signings, Philippe Coutinho played only 57 games before being loaned to Bayern Munich, Ousmane Dembélé has only scored 12 goals in 54 matches and was seen as the replacement for Luis Suárez. Antoine Griezmann is an even stranger case, one of the best players in La Liga in the last few years and the best player of the 2018 World Cup has found himself not even starting at Barcelona with only 9 goals in over 40 appearances.

Messi Scandal

The last straw for fans was the now-famous Burofax scandal in which Lionel Messi requested to leave Barcelona as per a handshake agreement with the club. The result was a public relations nightmare for both player and club. Messi trapped by his contract requesting to leave, while the club asked for astronomical sums to have the player be bought out. While Messi stayed, it was played as he was staying because he had no choice. For Bartomeu and the board, it was a moral victory of just being able to keep Messi after breaking the team apart following a disappointing 2019/2020 season.

However, Bartomeu had repeatedly assured that he had no intention whatsoever of stepping down as team president, even though he expected a vote of no-confidence to evaluate his future with the club.

Now, less than24 hours after saying that this wasn’t the right time to resign, Josep Maria Bartomeu surprisingly backpedaled and announced his immediate resignation, just one day before his team takes the pitch in Turin to face Juventus for the UEFA Champions League.

Bartomeu Said He Wasn’t Stepping Down, Then Resigns: Funniest Memes and Reactions

“It never crossed my mind to resign. The project is very interesting with young players and experienced ones, like [Lionel] Messi,” Bartomeu said, adding that they wanted to postpone the vote of no-confidence voting because of the pandemic.

“We put adequate mechanisms in place for the vote of no confidence,proposing November 1 and 2 in 13 locations in Catalonia. Last Thursday, our request to have 15 days to make the vote as universal as possible was not respected.The Generalitat [the government of Catalonia] did not accept to do it on November 15 and 16 in a decentralized way,” he added.

“The prime minister decreed a state of alarm and a curfew, establishing meetings of a maximum of six people, and Catalonia decreed a night-time curfew. We sent a letter to the Generalitat asking how we could guarantee the vote of members of over 65 and how we could guarantee the health of the 300 workers. We know that we live in serious situations that require exceptional measures; they are incompatible with partisan positions. We have decided that we will meet again when we have the answers,” Bartomeu said on Monday.

Now, the president has finally put an end to his infamous tenure in charge of the team, and needless to say, the internet wasn’t quiet about it. Here, we’ll show you the funniest memes and reactions about Bartomeu’s resignation.

This is definitely the dawn of a new era at Camp Nou and his resignation could even mean that Messi will stay with the team for good, but that’ll also likely depend on who steps up and how Ronald Koeman fares this season.

Before the meeting, Messi’s father told the press that it would be difficult for the six-time Ballon d’Or winner to stay in Barcelona. The Argentine superstar needs a change after spending almost 20 years at the Catalan club. However, Barcelona don’t want to let him go for free.

Of course, the two parts have their differences. Messi wants to leave for free to sign for the team he wants, while Barcelona will notlet him go unless his €700 Million release clause is paid. The negotiations failed and, according to Argentinean newspaper Olé,Jorge Messi did not give up and told Bartomeu that Messi was leaving.

Bartomeu wants Messi to stay

According to Sport, the meeting between Jorge Messi and Bartomeu lasted an hour and a half. Messi’s father tried to reach an agreement so his son could leave for free. However, the Barcelona president tried to convince him that Barcelona is the best option for Messiand that the Argentine superstar should stay at the club to finish his career there. And, apparently, that’s something that won’t happen.

Bartomeu told Jorge Messi that Barcelona’s new manager Ronald Koeman wants to count on the Argentine for next season and build the new Barca team around him. The Spanish newspaper also revealed that the president wants to offer a two-year contract extension to Messi.

The first chapter of the negotiations for Messi’s departure from Barcelona ended in failure. Now, it will only be a matter of time before the two parties agree to a new meeting to try to finally reach an agreement and decide the future of one of the best soccer players in history.

Bartomeu and Jorge Messi, Lionel’s father and his agent, will meet on Wednesday to discuss the legal issues and try to reach an agreement about the future of the six-time Ballon d’Or winner. Messi wants to leave the club for free, while the club will not let him go unless his€700 Million release clause is paid.

While everyone is talking about Messi’s future and a possible move to Manchester City, Barcelona is going through a rebuilding process, with new manager Ronald Koeman in charge. World-class players such as Luis Suárez andArturo Vidal have been told that they will not be in Koeman’s plans for next season and are looking for new clubs. Today, Bartomeu said goodbye to one of these stars: Rakitic.

Bartomeu reappears on Twitter to say goodbye to Rakitic

“Thank you,Ivan Rakitic, for your commitment and dedication. You’ve been a fundamental part of the successes of the last several years, and a example of professionalism. You will always have a home in Barcelona and at Barça”, wrote Bartomeu on his Twitter account with a picture of himself alongside Rakitic and the trophies the player has won at Barcelona.

Rakitic joined Barcelona in the 2014-15 season. He has won 13 titles with the Spanish club, including the UEFA Champions League 2014-15 and the FIFA Club World Cup 2015.

Messi surprised the soccer world by requesting to leave Barcelona. The six-time Ballon d’Or winner wants to leave the club for free, while Bartomeu and the rest of the board are not willing to let the player go unless his€700 Million release clause is paid or some club pays no less than€223 Million for his transfer.

Even La Liga released a statementsaying that he can only leave Barcelona if the release clause is paid. Messi decided to not attend Barcelona’s Covid-19 pre-season testing on Sunday and the first training session on Mondayto let the club know his intention to leave. New manager Ronald Koeman led his practice without the Argentina’sstar in his first day on the job.

Lionel Messi’s father travels to Barcelona

Jorge Messi, Lionel’s father and agent, will travel to Barcelona on Tuesday. He wants to meet with the club’s president Bartomeu and reach an agreement to put an end to this saga. The president and the restof the board remainfirm intheir decisionnot to let the player gounless they get money for him.

According to AS, Jorge Messi and Bartomeu have stayed in touch. They would meet on Wednesday to try to reach an agreement. However, it won’t be so simple.

Manchester City have been looking to sign Messi for years, and now could be their opportunity. The English side, with Pep Guardiola and Sergio Agüero,seems to be Messi’s first choice, but first he has to resolve his departure from Barcelona.

According to TV3, Bartomeu would be willing to resign if Messi decided to stay in Barcelona. However, he wants the Argentine to publicly say that he is the problem, a condition that will probably never met.

Messi made the decision to leave Barcelona and, apparently, there’s no turning back.Bartomeu has never been exactly popular among the team’s supporters but he’s reached an all-time low, as people from all over the world took it to social media to make ‘Bartomeu Resign’ a Trending Topic and fans went to the Camp Nou to protest.

Why would Messi and Bartomeu change theirminds?

Bartomeu is in the eye of the storm. After the disappointingsoccer results, poor signings in the recent transfer windows and Messi’s decision to leave Barcelona, the president denied reports of a possible resgination. However, the last couple of days would have changed his mind, according to TV3. Even fans want him out of the club.

Now that Bartomeu would be willing to resign, Messi could change his mind and stay in Barcelona. We’ll have to wait to see if Messi pronounces before retuning to training on Monday.