Bartomeu: I want to renew Barça star Leo Messi forever!

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has given a long interview to ESPN about Lionel Messi, his important and his future. Bartomeu assured that "we are working on the future because Leo is our leader, the best player in the world, he plays for us and he does so fantastically, but we know he will not be [playing] forever." 

He added that: "Maybe in three, four or five years, Leo Messi will say: 'OK, I am going to stop playing football.' So we are preparing our club for the future, for the time post-Leo. Because we would like to still be the top club at that time. So, it's a way of working, of investing, also of taking risks."

Bartomeu commented that he explains "to members of the club and the board, what we are doing is bringing right now very young players to the club. Young players that we think are very talented: [Clement] Lenglet, Ousmane Dembele, Arthur Melo, Frenkie de Jong, Marc-Andre ter Stegen is still very young. There a lot of players that will continue playing after the Messi era."

But Barça hope that Messi is around for a while yet and are planning to renew his deal. 

"We would like to renew his contract, that's the idea," the president said. "He is young -- you can see that [in his performances] -- and he still has two years on his deal. He's always improving, always innovating. I believe he still has many years in front of him and in the coming months we will sit down with him so that he has many more years at Barcelona.

"Lionel makes the difference in every game and demonstrates he's the best footballer in the world in every game of every season. Messi is a one-club man. It's more than what he does on the pitch -- his relationship with Barca will last forever. I use the example of Pele, who was always at Santos. We want Messi to always be at Barca, whether that's playing or linked to the club [when he's retired]."