Just when FC Barcelona seemed ready to close the chapter, a new twist has emerged. As the club celebrates its return to the Spotify Camp Nou, details have surfaced about the contract that could have changed everything: the deal Lionel Messi was prepared to sign in early 2023 to return home… a document that never saw the light of day.

A comeback shaped by Xavi Hernández, constant conversations, and a mutual desire to reunite — all undone by the same issue that has haunted Barça for years: the finances.

Barça’s Plan: Two Years, a Farewell, and a Custom-Made Role

According to Sport, Barcelona drafted a two-year contract (2023–2025) designed to bring Messi back, restore the bond, and give him the farewell he never received in 2021.

Xavi himself acted as the bridge between Joan Laporta and Jorge Messi, pushing an operation that depended on sporting balance, emotional healing, and above all, financial feasibility.

From January 2023, Xavi and Leo spoke every 10–15 days — not just about tactics, but about how to fit Messi into a project that would later win LaLiga. The key point: Messi wouldn’t play everything, but he would still have a leading role in his final dance as a Barça player.

By February, the first draft of the contract was ready.

LaLiga Breaks the Movie

Everything collapsed with one phone call.
Jorge Messi told Xavi that LaLiga would not approve the operation.

The club’s salary situation was still a disaster: strangled limits, lingering pandemic effects, and the financial mess inherited from the Bartomeu era still dragging on.

Not even a drastically reduced, almost symbolic contract for someone of Messi’s stature fit under the league’s rules. If Barça were already struggling to register academy players, adding Messi was simply impossible.

That was the moment the dream dissolved.

The Turn Toward Miami

Weeks later, the Messi family contacted David Beckham. There were no more doors left to knock on.

Without LaLiga’s approval, a Barça return wasn’t possible.
That’s how the path toward the United States was born — toward Inter Miami, where Messi found a sporting and personal project that Barcelona, regardless of desire, couldn’t match.

Messi in MLS… and a Potential Reunion With Müller

While Inter Miami and New York City prepare to fight for the Eastern Conference crown, another storyline is brewing on the opposite side of the country: San Diego vs. Vancouver Whitecaps, led by Thomas Müller.

If both Müller and Messi win their respective finals, they’ll meet for the MLS Cup — a showdown with history behind it:

• 7 wins for Müller
• 3 wins for Messi

A matchup that would add a spicy European flavor to a possible MLS final.