BARCELONA: President of FC Barcelona Joan Laporta gestures during a press conference at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona yesterday. - AFP

BARCELONA: Barcelona president Joan Laporta yesterday gave details of the "dramatic" financial problems that persuaded him to release Lionel Messi. "The economic and financial situation of the club is worrying, and the financial situation is dramatic," Laporta told a two-hour press conference at the Camp Nou. Barcelona, he said, have debts of 1.35 billion euros and a wage bill, at 617 million euros, that is "25 to 30 percent higher than that of our competitors." "We are all tightening our belts, in a couple of years the club's finances will be healthy."

As for Messi's departure, Laporta said that the two sides held "negotiations that both parties hoped would be fruitful but didn't work out. There is a mutual disappointment." He confided that the Argentine's presentation as a Paris Saint-Germain player on Saturday left him with "mixed feelings, like all Barca fans".

"I would have preferred to see him at Barca, although we have made the right decision," Laporta said. "I wish him all the best, I like to see him happy, he deserves it. From now on we will be an opponent." Barcelona opened their season with a 4-2 home win over Real Sociedad on Sunday. "It was a very Barca-like reaction," Laporta said. "All the players are more motivated than ever."

"Sunday showed that Barcelona fans are hungry for football and to see a team that fights and plays well. A new era is beginning. The short-term prospects are complicated, but in the medium-term they are magnificent," said Laporta, adding that Barcelona plan to return to developing young players as they did with Messi, who came through the youth system known as 'La Masia'. "We are going to bet on La Masia, which will allow us to develop the model we want."

Super League

Earlier yesterday, it was announced that nine of the 12 founder members of the short-lived European Super League rejoined the European Club Association (ECA), but Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus remain outside the influential group as they continue to back the breakaway project. The ECA said that Atletico Madrid, AC Milan and Inter Milan, along with all six English clubs involved in the breakaway -- Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur -- had been reinstated after acknowledging that a Super League "was not in the interests of the wider football community".

The nine clubs initially signed up to the project in April but all backed down within 48 hours in the face of overwhelming opposition from fans, players and organizations. The ECA called it "a regrettable and turbulent episode for European football" and also acknowledged the clubs' "willingness to engage actively with the ECA in its collective mission to develop European club football -- in the open and transparent interests of all, not the few."

The nine clubs accepted punishments from UEFA, including a five percent cut in their European revenue for one season, after backing down and apologizing for their "mistake" in joining the project, widely condemned as a crude land grab. However Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juve did not back down -- earlier this summer Laporta claimed the Super League was "still alive". He insisted the Super League would mean "financial sustainability for the clubs and make for a more attractive competition".

The three remaining clubs took a legal case to European authorities, leaving the European Court of Justice (CJEU) to decide whether UEFA was abusing its dominant position by opposing the Super League project, a quasi-closed tournament. Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli resigned from his role as chairman of the ECA as well as from his position on UEFA's executive committee as the breakaway was launched in April. His position at the head of the ECA was taken by Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi. The ECA, with nearly 250 members from across the continent, describes itself as "the sole, independent body directly representing football clubs at European level". - AFP