Lionel Messi contract that was signed on a napkin is set to go under the hammer this month. The Argentine signed the deal when he was 13, and the bidding is set to happen on 18 March.
As per an estimate by Ian Ehling, the head of fine books and manuscripts at Bonhams New York, the contract could fetch between $380,000 to $635,000. He spoke the media recently and said:
“This is one of the most thrilling items I have ever handled. Yes, it’s a paper napkin, but it’s the famous napkin that was at the inception of Lionel Messi’s career. It changed the life of Messi, the future of FC Barcelona, and was instrumental in giving some of the most glorious moments of football to billions of fans around the globe.”
Horacio Gaggioli currently has it framed and stored in the vault of an Andorran bank, as per a report in SPORT. He is still surprised that Barcelona have not taken it and put it in the club’s museum.
He was quoted by the Spanish publication as saying:
“I don’t know why it isn’t already on display there. While it was always considered to be a kind of contract, it was really a commitment without any money changing hands. I was always in favour of the napkin being displayed in the museum, and if one day it leaves [the bank in] Andorra, that is where it will go.”
The napkin will be available via an online auction at Bonhams, which is a privately owned auction house based in London.
Lionel Messi contract – What is written on the napkin?
Lionel Messi had a tryout at Barcelona a few months before the club signed him. Things were not looking good for the Argentine when his father, Jorge Messi, grew impatient with the negotiations.
Carles Rexach and Josep Minguella, the agents who took Messi to Barcelona were initially reluctant to sign the Argentine because of his height. However, the former quickly changed his mind and pulled out a napkin and wrote:
“In Barcelona, on 14 December 2000 and in the presence of Messrs Minguella and Horacio, Carles Rexach, FC Barcelona’s sporting director, hereby agrees, under his responsibility and regardless of any dissenting opinions, to sign the player Lionel Messi, provided that we keep to the amounts agreed upon.”
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Lionel Messi went on to debut for Barcelona in 2004 when he was just 16 years old. He played 778 matches for the Catalan side, scoring 672 times, and left in 2022 as a club legend.