Messi's fed up & Barça running risk of rupture

Tuesday's shock at Barcelona may bring unexpected consequences. Eric Abidal declared in SPORT that with former coach Ernesto Valverde "many players were not satisfied nor working hard" and Lionel Messi responded less than two hours later: "You should give names because if you don't, you're dirtying everyone." And the Argentine said that "those in the sporting directorate should take responsibility for their actions." It was, without a doubt, an invitation for the club to take action. 

We are looking at an open crisis in which the Barça captain and club legend has singled out the sporting director for comments which have not gone down well in the dressing room, a conflict without precedent. But we're also looking at some long lying issues which could get worse if president Josep Maria Bartomeu doesn't address the situation soon. 

Because the person who has spoken, in the name of the dressing room, is not anyone, it's Lionel Messi, on who, at the moment, the entire club and its immediate future hangs on. You don't need to look far to understand that Messi's message expresses that he is deeply fed up with many things that have happened at the club recently. It was already clear in his interview with SPORT last year, when he said he would have liked Neymar to come back last summer and he was not sure if the club had done all they could to make that happen. 

As can also be deduced, without risk of making a mistake, is that Messi didn't like the way in which Valverde was sacked, nor the famous trip to Doha to sound out Xavi and especially not how the January window panned out. In the background, the biggest fear of all Barça fans looms large: a clause that would allow the No.10 to walk away from Camp Nou for nothing this summer. 

Attention because Messi is fed up and the club is at serious risk of internal rupture. The club's immediate future depends on how this tsunami is dealt with. But to those that think that storms subside on their own, do not forget that what goes wrong is always susceptible to getting worse. Be very, very careful.