2024-01-31 09:54:00
The napkin that Lionel Messi signed in Barcelona
The legendary napkin that played a crucial role in Lionel Messi’s football destiny with FC Barcelona will be auctioned, according to recent information from La Vanguardia. This document is not just any document; It represents the moment when the Blaugrana club, through Carles Rexach, committed to signing the young Argentine player, sealing the verbal agreement with an inscription on a paper napkin. This event not only marked Messi’s career but is also a testament to the most unusual beginnings of an athlete with the club that catapulted him to global fame.
The auction, organized by Bonhams, a British company specialized in the sale of unique and collectible items, will take place between March 18 and 27. According to revelations from the Spanish newspaper, the starting price for this football memorabilia item is expected to be around 300,000 pounds, equivalent to regarding 350,000 euros. This data not only illustrates the material value of the napkin but also the symbolism and historical importance it represents for FC Barcelona and its fans.
The context behind this unusual contract is worthy of a movie. In a chance meeting at the Pompeia Tennis Club on December 14, 2000, Carles Rexach, then technical secretary of FC Barcelona, was forced to make a crucial decision. In front of him were Josep Maria Minguella and Horacio Gaggioli, the latter one of Messi’s representatives at that time.
The Messi family was beginning to get impatient due to the lack of an official response from the club regarding the interest in the young talent. It was then that, in a gesture full of audacity and commitment, Rexach wrote the following message on a napkin.
“In Barcelona, on December 14, 2000 and in the presence of Messrs. Minguella and Horacio, Carles Rexach, technical secretary of FC Barcelona, undertakes under his responsibility and despite some opinions once morest to sign the player Lionel Messi as long as when we remain within the agreed quantities.”
This preliminary agreement was signed and Messi then began one of the most brilliant careers in the history of world football.
The napkin with the commitment that Carles Rexach signed on behalf of Barcelona to hire Lionel Messi
It turned out that the napkin, which remained stored in a safe for years, is offered in the name of Horacio Gaggioli. Which adds another chapter to Messi’s already extraordinary story with FC Barcelona. At some point the possibility of this unique document becoming part of the Barça Museum’s collection was considered, but the talks did not prosper. Now, if the Catalan club wants to preserve this tangible piece of its history, it will have to compete in the auction.
“I think it should be there, in a preferential place next to Messi’s Ballon d’Or, since that little piece of paper is the one that changed the contemporary history of the club,” Gaggioli told Infobae during an interview in 2018.
The auction of Messi’s napkin is not simply the sale of another collector’s item. For FC Barcelona, its fans and the world of football in general, it represents an opportunity to own a piece of sporting history; a contract in a napkin that changed the destiny of one of the best footballers of all time.
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