FC Barcelona to Honor Lionel Messi with Statue
The president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, has announced plans to honor Lionel Messi with a statue at the iconic Camp Nou stadium. This comes as a heartfelt tribute to the player who left an indelible mark on the club. Messi, now 38, recently visited the stadium unexpectedly before joining the Argentine national team. He shared his visit on social media, expressing his desire to “return for the goodbye I never got to say as a player.”
Tribute Plans and Legacy
During a recent book launch focused on the renowned La Masia youth academy, Laporta stated,
“Messi deserves a tribute at Can Barça, the most beautiful place in the world. The club board and his teammates all believe we need to do more for Messi.”
He emphasized that, much like other legends of the game, including Ladislao Kubala and Johan Cruyff, who have their likenesses immortalized outside the stadium, Messi deserves the same recognition for his contributions.
After a remarkable 21-year career with Barcelona, in which he claimed an unprecedented 34 titles, Messi departed from the club in August 2021 as a free agent due to the financial turmoil that plagued the team. This departure was clouded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented him from adequately bidding farewell to fans despite being the club’s all-time leading scorer and appearance maker. In a recent discussion, Messi reflected on his exit, admitting it did not align with his dreams of leaving the club that shaped him.
Future Plans for the Statue
Laporta mentioned that the plans for the statue are underway, pending approval from Messi’s family. He stated,
“We are working on it; once we have a design that’s approved, we will present it. This is something that would delight a lot of Barcelona fans, to have a statue of Leo Messi next to other great figures in the club’s history.”
Currently, Messi plays for Inter Miami after his stint at Paris Saint-Germain, recently extending his contract with the MLS team until the end of the 2028 season, which will see him still competing at the age of 41. The proposed statue would serve as a fitting tribute to one of football’s true greats—a player synonymous with the spirit and legacy of FC Barcelona.
