According to Catalan paper El Periodico, police have discovered an email sent by a top Barcelona employee in March 2020 in which he suggests the club should leak the contract details of Lionel Messi.
El Periodico also reported that recovered private phone messages from a group chat involving some of the club’s one-time directors and executives referred to Messi as a ‘sewer rat’ and a ‘hormone-treated dwarf’.
It was Spanish paper El Mundo that published full details of Messi’s contract in January 2021 and police are investigating if the author and recipients of the uncovered email have breached confidentiality laws.
According to El Periodico, Roman Gomez Ponti wrote the email when he was top legal counsel at the club. President Josep Bartomeu and ex-chief executive Oscar Grau were copied in.
The alleged phone messages come from a group chat just after El Mundo’s revelations regarding Messi’s wages.
Bartomeu, who had already ceased to be president, asks who could have leaked the salary details claiming that whoever had, had ‘done damage to the club’.
El Periodical says Ponti responded suggesting Bartomeu was too good to Messi who he claimed tried to dictate what happened at the club.
One of the messages published by El Periodico and reproduced in various Spanish media says: ‘Barto really, you can’t be such a good person with this sewer rat.
‘The club has given him everything when he has dedicated himself to dictating over signings, contract renewals, sponsors etc.’
The messages goes on to talk about an ‘accumulation of blackmail and rudeness that the club and those of us who work at the club have suffered from this hormone-treated dwarf who owes Barça his life’.
It continues: ‘ah! But when things go wrong you receive the famous whatsapp: “Presi, lower the salary of the others, but don’t touch me and Luis”. I hope he leaves amidst the indifference of the people, which is the worst thing that can happen to him.’
The leaked findings are from the ‘Barçagate’ police investigation looking at possible wrongdoing by the previous board of directors.
In the email to president Bartomeu, El Periodico says Gomez Ponti writes: ‘Neither would it be a bad idea to publish the multi-million contracts of the first team so the people can repudiate them publicy.’
