Former Barcelona player Xavi Hernández, part of the golden generation in Barça with Iniesta and Busquets, and manager of the first team between 2021 and 2024, has dropped a bombshell about outgoing club president Joan Laporta one week before Barça's presidential elections, in which Laporta aims for a re-election. According to the manager, unemployed since June 2024 and recently rumoured for the Moroccan national team alongside Iniesta, Laporta vetoed a return of Leo Messi to the club in 2023 (two years after his departure and before his signing to Inter Miami) because the player's influence was a threat to the president.
Hernández has shaken the electoral campaign with his statements in an interview published by La Vanguardia on Sunday. "Leo was signed. In January 2023, after winning the World Cup, we contacted him and he told me he was keen to come back. We talked until March and I told him, 'well, when you give me the OK, I'll tell the president because I see it as a good fit for him from a footballing perspective'. The president started negotiating the contract with Leo's father and we had the green light from LaLiga, but it was the president who threw everything off", said Hernández.
"Laporta told me verbatim that if Leo came back, he was going to wage war against him and that he couldn't allow it", Xavi added. "Leo isn't coming to Barça because the president doesn't want him, not because of La Liga, nor because Jorge Messi (his father and manager) is asking for more money—that's a lie. It's the president and his people who are telling him no, that he can't allow it, that he has all the power and that Messi is going to mismanage that power".
Shortly after, Laporta responded in a presidential debate with Víctor Font (via AS), the other candidate who has Xavi's support. Laporta said he feels "surprised and saddened", and launched a counter-attack comparing Xavi unfavourably with his replacement, Hansi Flick. "With nearly the same players Xavi lost and Flick wins", justifying the decision of firing him.