Former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu and his board are once again under fire after a recent report. Roman Gomez Ponti, the Head of Legal Services under Bartomeu, was seen calling Lionel Messi a ‘sewer rat’ and a ‘hormonal dwarf’ in WhatsApp texts retrieved by police. Meanwhile, Ponti addressed Gerard Pique as ‘son of a b*tch’.
The WhatsApp conversations included Ponti, Bartomeu, and Oscar Grau, the club’s former CEO. Also executives such as Jordi Moix, David Bellver, Oriol Tomas, Pancho Schroder, and Javier Sobrino.
What Ponti said in the WhatsApp chat about Messi and others
In the past, Ponti has made controversial statements regarding Messi. As early as January 2021, Ponti alleged that Messi contacted Bartomeu during the pandemic to tell him they could defer everyone’s wages but not Messi’s and Suarez’s.
The WhatsApp chat reads:
“Barto, really, you can’t be such a good person with this sewer r*t. The club has given him everything and he has dedicated himself to marking a dictatorship of signings, transfers, renewals, patros just for him,”
“I will never be able to do it. But Pinto, the renewal of Suárez, and that of Jordi Alba, or the renewal commission for Fati (Rodrigo Messi, agent?) should be added to the figures of his contract?”
“And above all the accumulation of blackmail and rudeness that the club and those of us who work have suffered from this hormonal dw*rf who owes Barça his life. ”
“But when things go wrong you receive the mythical WhatsApp. ‘President, lower the salaries of others, but don’t touch Luis and me.‘ Hopefully, it marches among the indifference of the people, which is the worst thing that can happen to it.”
Barcelona witnessed the infamous defeat against Bayern Munich (2-8). Soon after, Pique addressed the media, saying that there needed to change at all levels.
Hence in March 2020, Ponti wrote a letter to Bartomeu stating:
“It would not be a bad idea to publish [in media] the million-dollar contracts of the first team so that people can publicly renounce them.”
Later, El Mundo leaked the contract details of Messi and Pique. The evidence pointing to Grau and Ponti as the leakers.
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