'Lionel Messi feels betrayed by Barcelona' - the inside track on new PSG star's Nou Camp exit

[Animous]

So now we know for sure that the day Barcelona never thought they would see is upon them.

After more than 20 years, 778 games, 672 goals, 35 trophies including 10 La Liga titles, four Champions Leagues and numerous personal records and honours, Lionel Messi has left Barcelona.

Even as he packed his bags in readiness for a new life at Paris St-Germain, rumours were swirling around the Catalan capital that Barcelona were on the verge of making a last-ditch offer that would keep him at the club, rumours that sources close to both sides were quick to deny. It was not going to happen.

Rumours were started more in hope than expectation by a Catalan media outlet, perhaps unable to grasp the unimaginable reality that from now on this will be a Barcelona without Messi. If they are unable to accept it, imagine how Messi must be feeling.

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To begin to try to understand where Messi finds himself as the six-time Ballon d'Or winner prepares for a new life in Paris, we should start with the end of the highly-emotional media conference at which he announced he would be leaving Barcelona.

At the end of it, the cold greeting Messi extended to the recently installed Barcelona president Joan Laporta was in sharp contrast to the effusive display of affection shown by the player when they met at the Nou Camp shortly after Laporta won election.

Disguising his body language either on or off the pitch has never been the Argentine superstar's strong point.

Throughout the long and drawn out 'will he stay or will he go?' saga that has been playing out in Barcelona, Laporta has been unfailingly optimistic, always insisting he and Messi were very close, had an excellent relationship and that things were going very well.

Meanwhile, all the messages I was receiving from the Messi side were similarly upbeat, hopeful that a deal could be done. But - they insisted - they were much more cautious than the president.

Right from the start of his election campaign, Laporta insisted that not only would he be able to persuade Messi to stay (he just needed a "barbecue with him") but also that he was the only candidate who could do so.

So what did he know that the other candidates didn't? Because what he knows now about the Financial Fair Play regulations that have to be adhered to, the limitations the club are forced to operate under, are no different to what he knew then. Nothing has changed.

What he didn't know perhaps was the extent of the problem he and the club are facing.

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Once in power he was obviously shocked to discover the level of debt. He expected to find a total debt from last season of about 200m euros and instead he has found it nudging 500m.

But also he owes his presidency to those who put down their money as guarantee of 15% of the budget, an obligation from the new directors to confirm the new regime. Those forces are now in charge of a club supposedly owned by season-ticket holders. And they do not want to keep Messi and continue with the huge debt.

A month and a half ago the two men went for dinner, after which Messi felt reassured that Laporta knew a way to guarantee he could stay at the club.

Barcelona eventually produced two different contracts, one for two years, the other for five. The five-year arrangement, which both parties shook hands on, was one the club felt sure would be approved by La Liga.

And at this point, things really start to get - if you pardon the pun - a bit, well, 'messy'.

La Liga boss Javier Tebas and Laporta met two or three days later, with Tebas telling him they could approve the Messi deal but that it might need the help of private equity group CVC, who have recently agreed a deal, pending club approval, that would inject 2.7bn euros (£2.3bn) into La Liga in exchange for just over a 10% stake in most of its business, with 90% of the injection going to clubs.

The problem with that idea was that Real Madrid and Barcelona decided to go against the deal; a deal would have brought money into the club and 15% of it - around 40m euros - could have been put towards the wage bill.

Although Laporta knew perfectly well that the only way Barcelona could keep Messi would be by accepting the deal (and expressed his enthusiasm for it when he met Tebas), he was convinced by Barcelona's new chief executive, Ferran Reverter, that doing so would not be in the best interests of the club.

Then things went from bad to worse when Reverter (who has not forgotten the club is now in the hands of those financial forces mentioned earlier) hit Laporta with some numbers that probably made the new president's blood run cold. With Messi's wages last season, the wage bill was 110% of income, without them 95%.

Put simply, things became impossible.

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