Lionel Messi and his father/agent, Jorge, were both charged with tax fraud and sentenced to 21 months in prison on Wednesday.
Inevitably, rumors about the Argentine ace not being happy in Spain are already leaking.
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Messi, 29, or his father won’t serve time as the Spanish legal system states that any first time offender who is handed a sentence under two years will instead be on probation.
After all of this, The Sun newspaper in the UK is reporting that Messi’s father, Jorge, has met with Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich on his $1.9 billion yacht recently.
They claim that the player and his family believe Barcelona could’ve done more to help him in his legal battle against the Spanish authorities and Messi could be looking at his other options.
From the Sun:The fee for Messi would smash the £100million mark and SunSport understands that Messi’s father, who represents his superstar son, has met with Blues’ owner Roman Abramovich.
The meeting is believed to have taken place in the last ten days on Abramovich’s personal superyacht, the Eclipse.
The report goes on to state that Chelsea is willing to match Messi’s wages of $774,000 per week, while Manchester City has met with Jorge in the past year and said it would offer the forward over $950,000 per week. New City manager Pep Guardiola said earlier this week that there was no way Messi would leave Barca but given the seismic events of the past few days, who knows?
With Barcelona’s Neymar signing a bumper new deal last week at Barca, Messi retiring from international soccer and yet to be offered a new contract at the Nou Camp, will he see out the final few years of his career in the Premier League?
It would be a long shot, even with the huge amounts of money on offer.
Most of this report is leaning on the human factor and the fact that Messi may be fed up of the situation he finds himself in after being found guilty of tax fraud. Although that may be true, Messi has been with Barca since the age of 13. Would he really embark on a new journey in England with a five or six years of his career to go?
Stranger things have happened and it sounds like Chelsea is trying to position themselves as the favorites in the PL to snap Messi up, if he ever decides to leave Barcelona behind.