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Barcelona Wants Face-to-Face Meeting to Change Messi’s Mind

A woman poses with Lionel Messi merchandise after the new broke about his potential departure. (Reuters)
A woman poses with Lionel Messi merchandise after the new broke about his potential departure. (Reuters)
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Barcelona Wants Face-to-Face Meeting to Change Messi’s Mind

A woman poses with Lionel Messi merchandise after the new broke about his potential departure. (Reuters)
A woman poses with Lionel Messi merchandise after the new broke about his potential departure. (Reuters)

Barcelona is banking on a face-to-face meeting with Lionel Messi to try to convince him to stay.

Talks with Messi’s father, who is also his agent, are expected this week in Barcelona, but the club also hopes to sit down with the player himself.

Messi has been offered a two-year contract extension, a club official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person is not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The contract would run through the 2022-23 season. Both sides had already pre-agreed on most of the terms a few months ago, according to the club official.

Barcelona and Messi have yet to talk directly since the Argentine said last week that he wanted to leave the club. He made his announcement 11 days after the season ended in an 8-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

The humiliating defeat on Aug. 14 capped a complicated season for Barcelona, the first without a title since 2007-08.

Messi then invoked a clause that would allow him to leave for free at the end of the season, but Barcelona said the clause expired in June. Messi’s staff is expected to claim that the end of the season was pushed back because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Neither side has yet to concede, with Messi not showing up for training along with the rest of the squad this week and Barcelona saying it will not facilitate his departure.

Barcelona reiterated its stance that it wants Messi to remain with the club and that it is not planning to negotiate his transfer. His contract ends in June 2021 and has a buyout clause of 700 million euros ($838 million).

Club president Josep Bartomeu first talked to Messi’s father over the phone after the loss to Bayern and was told that Messi was frustrated and disappointed. They talked again a few times after Messi announced his decision to leave, but the first personal meeting between the two was expected to happen in the coming days.

The club hopes, though, that it can solve the problem by meeting with Messi in person and convincing him that the best decision for him is to stay.

Messi, who has often said in the past that he wanted to finish his career with Barcelona, has not publicly expressed his reasons for wanting to leave. He never directly named Bartomeu in his criticism of the club, but the president said last week he was willing to resign if Messi cited him as the problem.

Barcelona said it was not talking to any clubs about a possible transfer but it was open to negotiating for the players who incoming coach Ronald Koeman said were not included in his plans, including Luis Suárez, Arturo Vidal and Samuel Umtiti.

Ivan Rakitic, who also was in that list, was signed by Sevilla on Tuesday.

The three others have been training with the rest of the squad for now, including Suárez, a longtime teammate and friend of Messi. The club said there was no agreement reached yet for his transfer.

Barcelona will start the new season against Villarreal in the Spanish league at the end of September.

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Tunisian Freediver Eyes Records and Developing the Sport

Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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Tunisian Freediver Eyes Records and Developing the Sport

Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

Tunisian freediver Walid Boudhiaf, the Arab world's only international champion in the sport and a one-time world record holder at 150 meters, is eyeing new achievements and hopes to expand the sport in his home country, where "thousands practice it without even realizing.”

During a recent visit to Tunisia, the 46-year-old, who spends half the year in Colombia and the other half training in the Bahamas, shared his remarkable journey with AFP.

Though he grew up in Tunisia, where he spent most of his summers by the sea, Boudhiaf didn't discover freediving until later.

His father, a Tunisian university professor, and French doctor mother were both "sea lovers" and taught him to swim at the age of three, later introducing him to spearfishing.

By his mid-20s, freediving came to him a continent away and nowhere near the sea -- "by chance in a pool in Bogota,” the Colombian capital that sits over a thousand kilometers from the Pacific Ocean.

Boudhiaf initially took up underwater rugby, which, he said, proved "not aggressive enough.”

His coach had then noticed his ability to control his breath, which years later would help him achieve a personal record of seven minutes 38 seconds.

Boudhiaf said living in Bogota at 2,600 meters above sea level has also helped develop "excellent cardiovascular conditions" by stimulating red blood cell production due to the low oxygen levels.

He then began training up to six hours a day, he said, while balancing a job as a computer engineer.

"I stopped going out," he recalls. "All I did was train."

- World record -

Boudhiaf entered his first competition in Marseille in 2007, but it wasn't until 2012 that he was able to fully dedicate himself to freediving, following a "last job in the Canary Islands, where I went to be closer to the sea.”

Today, thanks to sponsorship from Tunisian companies, he can finally make a living from his passion and also organizes workshops and conferences based around the sport.

In Egypt in 2021, he gained international renown when he set a world record at 150 meters in the variable weight category, which requires using a pulling rope on the way down and fins to go back up.

He said he was inspired by Luc Besson's 1988 film "The Big Blue" that put freediving on the map, and the achievements of legendary diver Umberto Pelizzari.

"It was a dream that I had since I watched 'The Big Blue' and saw Umberto Pelizzari's records," he said. "One hundred fifty meters is a symbolic frontier, a testament to human potential."

Boudhiaf was also crowned world champion in 2022, diving to 116 meters in free immersion apnea timed at three minutes 54 seconds.

After collecting several medals at the Deep Blue competition in Dominica this past April -- one gold, two silver, and one bronze -- he has been training for the 2025 Vertical Blue, an elite freediving competition held in the Bahamas, which he calls "the Wimbledon of freediving".

He is hoping to beat the constant weight record of 136 meters, currently held by Russia's Alexey Molchanov, who broke Boudhiaf's variable weight record with a depth of 156 meters in March 2023.

- 'Everyone can do it' -

Beyond competing and pursuing records, which "have ups and downs and challenges to maintaining peak performance", another focus of Boudhiaf's is growing the sport in Tunisia.

"Many Tunisians are already practicing it without knowing it, through amateur spearfishing, which is a form of freediving," he said, referring to Tunisia's long-standing traditions of sponge diving and coral collecting.

Additionally, interest in pool-based freediving is growing, he added, especially at the Rades Olympic Complex near Tunis.

"I'm motivated to provide more support," Boudhiaf said, adding that the sport required little resources and equipment and that it "isn't a sport for the wealthy".

While Egypt, Greece or Türkiye are better for competition-oriented training with "very deep spots close to the shore" in the Mediterranean, according to Boudhiaf, Tunisia is still suitable for "recreational freediving”

"You don't need to dive 100 meters," he said. "At 20, 30, or 50 meters, beginners can improve and even reach an advanced level."

Freediving is also "the most natural way to observe and interact with marine life," he added.

Breathing techniques also promote good health, he said, because the exercises can help manage stress.