,Argentine star Lionel Messi spoke about the “scandalous” report
from Spain,which revealed that Barcelona club contracted a
specializedcompany, to discredit a number of the club’s legends,
on social media, including Messi himself.
Messi confirmed at the beginning of his speech, that he was
surprised by the news,just like the general public, saying: “The truth
surprised me a littlebecause, I was traveling and I was not in
Barcelona,”
in a long interview with him, Mondo Deportivo.
And, the Argentine star said: “When I got back here, I knew about
it.”
According to the radio program “La Lucia del KT Jugers”, which is
issued from Barcelona in the Catalan language,
the Barcelona administration contracted with a company specialized
in social media, to discredit a number of the club’s legends,
in the interest of its current president, Josep Maria Batomio.
The report said that the administration had two main goals in
contracting with the company, namely, to protect Bartomio’s reputation,
and to discredit several people closely related to the club.
The administration has contracted with the company, “i3 Ventures,”
which manages dozens of “undocumented” accounts on Facebook
and Twitter,
which were used to attack the team’s stars such as Lionel Messi and
Gerard Pique, according to the report.
In his first talk about the “resounding” report, Messi said: “The club
president told us what he said to the public, which is the same thing
he said at the press conference.”
Josep Maria Bartomeu had denied the matter in full, asserting that
the club would sue the media that published the news without any
evidence.
Despite, Bartomio’s talk with Messi, the Argentine star did not seem
completely convinced,
and looked forward to the implications of the matter, during
emphasizing Bartomio’s speech, and denied the report.
Messi said: “The fact is that this seems very strange. They said that
there will be evidence about the news (by the Catalan media). We
have to wait.”
He added, “I cannot speak more about the matter until I have the
evidence. The case is very strange to me.”
Barcelona denied, on Monday evening, that it has anything to do
with these accounts on social media, and demanded the radio
program to officially back down from the information it provided.
So, The shocking report comes at a time when, the club’s
administration is floundering in dealing with its first star Messi,
who entered into a conflict with sports director Eric Abidal, weeks
ago , due to, the latter’s criticism of the players.
