His immense talent was immediately clear, but securing his future with the club wasn’t straightforward.Some within Barcelona were hesitant due to Messi’s age and the financial burden of paying for his medical treatments for a growth hormone deficiency.
Carles Rexach, then Barcelona’s technical director, recognized Messi’s potential and was eager to secure his signature before other European clubs swooped in. However, formal negotiations dragged on, frustrating Messi’s father, Jorge, who wanted assurances for his son’s future.
In a fateful meeting at a tennis club in Barcelona, Rexach, keen not to lose the opportunity to sign the prodigious talent, decided to take matters into his own hands. With no formal paperwork on hand, Rexach hastily grabbed a napkin and scribbled the terms of Messi’s first contract. Both Rexach and Jorge Messi signed it, making it an unofficial yet historic agreement.
“In Barcelona, on 14 December 2000 and in the presence of Messrs Minguella and Horacio, Carles Rexach, FC Barcelona‘s sporting director, hereby agrees, under his responsibility and regardless of any dissenting opinions, to sign the player Lionel Messi, provided that we keep to the amounts agreed upon,” is written on the napkin from the Pompeia tennis club.
Messi made his professional debut in 2004 and went on to set FC Barcelona’s goal-scoring record with 672 goals in 778 matches.
During his 17-year career at Barcelona, Messi won 10 La Liga titles and four Champions League trophies before moving to Paris Saint-Germain in 2021. The 37-year-old currently plays for Inter Miami in the US.
That napkin marked the beginning of Messi’s legendary journey with Barcelona, where he would go on to become one of the greatest footballers of all time. The napkin is now a symbol of football history, showing how a simple act of faith forever changed the sport.
Incidentally, the napkin was sold at an online auction by the UK-based firm Bonhams earlier this year for whooping 762,400 British pounds ($968,600).