Barcelona legend Hristo Stoichkov has hammered the Barcelona board for its treatment of Lionel Messi.
The Argentina star made a transfer request on Tuesday amid growing frustration with the presidency of Josep Maria Bartomeu and disillusionment with the lack of progress on the field.
Manchester City head the queue of clubs aiming to take Messi if he can extricate himself from his contract – or if Barca decide a sale is the only way out of a damaging situation.
But there is a public relations battle also playing out in Barcelona, with the club keen to portray Messi as betraying the club which took him to the heights of fame and fortune, while the player’s camp are keen to emphasise that the club has let him down after 20 years of loyal service.
Messi has asked for a meeting with the senior management of the club, but the initial reaction seems to be that there is nothing to discuss – unless someone triggers his £630million release clause.
That has brought stinging criticism from Ballon D’Or winner Stoichkov, the Bulgaria star who won Barca’s first European Cup – alongside Pep Guardiola – in 1992, as well as four successive La Liga titles.
“We're erasing a myth, we’re giving the best player in Barcelona’s history a kick up the backside,” said Stoichkov.
“We’re staining his name, his charisma. I’m a member, so that’s why I’m saying we’re staining it. The board has ruined everything. It seems as though they want to pit the fans against the players.
“I won successive league titles, the club’s first European Cup – I don’t know how to repay the love from the fans. But this board doesn’t show its face. As a club, it’s pitiful.”
Stoichkov suggested Messi is just the latest player to suffer from the board’s protection of its own interests.
“I don’t know why we, the players who have made history at Barcelona, are always shown the back door,” he said.
“They think we’re going to bother them because we want to take the presidency off them or something like that. I don’t know what goes through their heads.”
