The serviette on which Barcelona dedicated to signal a 13-year-old Lionel Messi has been offered in an public sale for £762,400.
The inauguration value used to be £300,000 for the ‘usual Spanish waxy serviette’ which is 16.5 x 16.5cm and used to be laminated and framed.
The serviette, signed in blue ink in December 2000, carries a agreement from upcoming Barcelona director Carles Rexach to signal Messi.
It used to be additionally signed by means of Josep Minguella, a switch abettor to the Spanish membership, and agent Horacio Gaggioli, who advisable the Argentine teenager.
The serviette in blue ink used to be introduced in a web-based public sale by means of London-based Bonhams by and for Gaggioli.
Messi joined Barca a past later the offer used to be correct and went directly to change into their report goalscorer and lots of regard him as the best participant of all occasion.
He made his first-team debut elderly 16 and scored a report 672 targets in 778 video games for the Catalan membership.
Messi received 10 Los angeles Liga titles and the Champions League 4 occasions at Barcelona earlier than retirement for Paris St-Germain in 2021 – and the 36-year-old International Cup winner now performs for Inter Miami.
The serviette used to be signed at a gathering organized by means of Rexach, who invited Messi’s father Jorge to lunch later issues from the Messi people a couple of insufficiency of reaction from Barcelona following {the teenager}’s preliminary trial.
Translated into English, it reads: “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.”
