Officials with the team knew this. And so they inked a deal, drawing up a contract during a lunch meeting — on a napkin.
Messi’s agent, a longtime Barcelona coach and the club’s transfer adviser signed the prodigy on Dec. 14, 2000, making their commitment by taking a blue ballpoint pen to a napkin. In March, the napkin will be auctioned off by Bonhams. The auction house called the makeshift contract “one of the most pivotal documents in the history of football” in its announcement Wednesday.
Ian Ehling, head of fine books and manuscripts at Bonhams New York, said in a statement that the napkin was “one of the most thrilling items” he had handled.
“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,” Ehling said.
The starting price for the paper napkin is about $379,000.
Bonhams said it was auctioning the napkin on behalf of Argentine agent Horacio Gaggioli, who was representing Messi in 2000 when the deal was made.
At the time, there were several issues surrounding Messi’s recruitment, Bonhams said in its announcement. He was extremely skilled, having been recruited while playing for his hometown team, Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario, Argentina, but he was less than 5 feet tall. He was also only 13, and some Barcelona leaders were hesitant about sinking money into such a young player.
Come December 2000, the negotiations were at a standstill. Jorge Messi awaited an answer about his son’s future. It was time for the club to make a call.
During a lunch meeting that month with Gaggioli and transfer adviser Josep Minguella, Barcelona sporting director Carles Rexach took a napkin from the dispenser at the table and etched in Spanish:
“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.”
It marked the start of one of the most storied careers in soccer.
Considered the greatest player in his generation, Messi is an eight-time world player of the year. In 2022, he led Argentina’s national team to a World Cup championship. Sotheby’s later auctioned off six of his World Cup match shirts.
Barcelona remained the sole professional soccer club Messi played for until 2021, when the organization said it had met “economic and structural obstacles” while trying to reach another deal with him. He later joined Inter Miami, where he plays now.
But before all of that, the napkin “changed the fortunes” of both Messi and Barcelona, Bonhams said. And though Messi’s deal with the club was finalized later that same day on real paper, it was the napkin that helped reassure the 13-year-old’s concerned father.
“I told Jorge that there was my signature and that there were witnesses,” Rexach recalled in an interview with ESPN to commemorate the napkin contract’s 20th anniversary. “That with my name I would take direct responsibility, there was nothing else to talk about and to be patient for a few days because Leo could already consider himself a Barca player.”
