Barcelona remain adamant that Lionel Messi will not be leaving the club this summer, according to reports in Spain.
Messi has shocked both Barca and the football world by demanding to leave the club he first joined as a teenager in 2001 in the wake of upheaval at the Nou Camp and disappointing recent results.
After losing out to Real Madrid in the La Liga title race, Barca suffered a humiliating 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, prolonging their pain in that competition after damaging exits to Liverpool and Roma in the previous two seasons.
That result led to the exits of both manager Quique Setien and sporting director Eric Abidal, with Ronald Koeman being appointed as the new coach.
The former Southampton and Everton manager - a hero at Barca after scoring the goal that won them the 1992 European Cup, the club's first - has walked into an extremely sticky situation surrounding Messi, but the club's response remains defiant.
Mundo Deportivo report that Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu is adamant that Messi will not be allowed to leave this summer, with the club also not considering allowing him to join a Champions League rival on a free transfer.
Bartomeu himself is coming under fire from fans of the club, but the report adds that he sees it as his obligation to manage surely the worst crisis Barca have faced in many years, as he resists calls to quit.
Club officials remain united that the clause in Messi's contract which allows him to leave had to be activated before June 10, something that Messi's camp dispute because of the altered nature of the season amid the coronavirus crisis.
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