Paris Saint-Germain were increasingly confident of signing Lionel Messi on Saturday morning, after concluding talks with the 34-year-old's father Jorge.
While a formal proposal had not yet been made by that point, the principles of a two-year deal have been agreed.
The French champions feel they can make the transfer work due to Messi's huge commercial appeal, and there is a hope a deal can be concluded quickly.
While PSG are in the best possible position to sign Messi due to their Qatari backing - the brother of the state's Emir even confirmed on social media that talks had concluded - they also want to conclude the deal quickly in order to eliminate any competition.
Messi’s team had been surveying potential options over Friday, and The Independent has been told that intermediaries attempted to set up a direct meeting between Roman Abramovich and Jorge Messi, to try and bring him to Chelsea.
That looked like it might be too late on Saturday morning.
While Manchester City were meanwhile uninterested in going for Messi a third time, particularly after having been let down last summer.
While Barcelona president Joan Laporta explained the club’s decision to allow Messi to leave on a free transfer at a press conference on Friday.
“I can’t make a decision that will affect the club for 50 years,” Laporta said.
“The club is over 100 years old and it’s above everyone and everything, even above the best player of the world. We will always thank him for everything he’s done for us.
“In order to have fair play, we need to do this or make an effort which would put the club at risk. We couldn’t keep going with this and we needed to make a decision, which we have.”
