Still in a Mess

> Messi agreed a deal months ago but hasn’t put pen to paper, while Iniesta is still waiting for proper discussions as the club treat him with a remarkable disrespect

institution so obsessed by a values and a sense of moral superiority, mes

club has been a mess of a club recently and their curious treatment of Iniesta has little explanation.

It would be completely fair to say that the way Barca’s financials work means that it could have been delayed, but not to this point, not to the stage where it now feels a genuine possibility that Iniesta might be considering his future.

Robert Fernandez, the sporting director, is charged with sorting out deals and is assisted by other senior officials. Pep Segura’s recent promotion shouldn’t affect anything except the rumbles from inside and outside the Nou Camp that Fernandez’s future is less certain than it has been.

After a summer of tumult, what will become of those whose actions contributed to such unwelcome upheaval? After the transfer window that should become a lot clearer.

For Iniesta and Messi this is the only club they have ever known but, with Neymar out the door and Real Madrid on the rise it genuinely feels like the golden era that Pep Guardiola well and truly ignited in 2008 may have run its course.

Next summer marks a decade on from that ambitious hire, a balding Barcelona B coach promoted more out of hope than expectation, yet it could mark the moment this club is shorn of the two players who have seen out that period in its entirety.

That remains unlikely, perhaps, but if and when Messi and Iniesta renew their Barcelona contracts, it will be more out of loyalty than inspiration, because the club is currently lacking any. – The Independent