In an unusual piece of football history, the first-ever contract of football legend Lionel Messi with Barcelona is for sale.<\/p>\n
The contract was famously written on a napkin and symbolises the beginning of Messi’s extraordinary journey with Barcelona when he was just 13 years old, back in December 2000.<\/p>\n
Messi, who later became Barcelona’s all-time leading scorer, joined the club a month after this napkin agreement and enjoyed a stellar 17-year career there. During his time with the Spanish giants, he celebrated 10 Spanish League titles and four Champions League victories before moving to Paris St-Germain in 2021.<\/p>\n
The napkin contract is expected to attract bids over $800,000NZD. It was signed during a lunch meeting arranged by Barcelona’s then director Carles Rexach, who met with Messi’s father, Jorge, following Lionel’s impressive trial with the club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an unusual piece of football history, the first-ever contract of football legend Lionel Messi with Barcelona is for sale. The contract was famously written on a napkin and symbolises the beginning of Messi’s extraordinary journey with Barcelona when he was just 13 years old, back in December 2000. Messi, who later became Barcelona’s all-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"yoast_head":"\n