A recent revelation made by SPORT has once again put former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu and his board under fire.
The outlet has shed light on the WhatsApp texts gathered by the police where Roman Gomez Ponti, Head of Legal Services under Bartomeu, was seen calling Lionel Messi a ‘sewer r*t’ and ‘hormonal dw*rf’. Ponti also reserved words for Gerard Pique, who he called ‘son of a b*tch’.
In these WhatsApp chats, Ponti was joined by Bartomeu, Oscar Grau, the then CEO of the club, executives such as Jordi Moix, Oriol Tomas and David Bellver, the financial director Pancho Schroder and Javier Sobrino, director of Strategy and Innovation.
It must be remembered that Ponti has previously made controversial statements regarding Messi.
Back in January 2021 when Bartomeu and his board were already out, Ponti alleged Messi that he called the former president during the pandemic to tell him that he can defer everyone’s salary at the club but not his and his friend Luis Suarez.
“Barto, really, you can’t be such a good person with this sewer r*t. The club has given him everything and he has dedicated himself to marking a dictatorship of signings, transfers, renewals, patros (sponsors) just for him,” read the WhatsApp chat.
“I will never be able to do it, but Pinto, the renewal of Suárez, and that of Jordi Alba, or the renewal commission for Fati (Rodrigo Messi, agent?) should be added to the figures of his contract?
“And above all the accumulation of blackmail and rudeness that the club and those of us who work have suffered from this hormonal dw*rf who owes Barça his life. ah!
“But when things go wrong (pandemic) you receive the mythical WhatsApp: ‘President, lower the salaries of others, but don’t touch Luis and me.’ Hopefully, it marches among the indifference of the people, which is the worst thing that can happen to it.”
Amidst all of that, Barcelona witnessed the infamous Lisbon debacle against Bayern Munich (2-8) and soon after, Pique addressed the media, saying that changes are needed at Barcelona at all levels.
So in March 2020, Ponti wrote a long mail to Bartomeu, which read, “It would not be a bad idea to publish [in media] the million-dollar contracts of the first team so that people can publicly renounce them.”
Eventually, El Mundo went on to leak the contract details of several Barcelona players that included Messi and Pique with the evidence pointing at Grau and Ponti to be the ones behind the leaks.