Barcelona Planning to Build Huge Lionel Messi Statue Outside Camp Nou

• Barcelona are prepared to facilitate Lionel Messi's return to the club next season by building a statue of him near Camp Nou
• Lionel Messi will become the third player in Barcelona's history to have their statue built outside the stadium
• Lionel Messi’s current contract with Paris Saint-Germain expires at the end of the 2022-23 season

Barcelona president Joan Laporta is planning to build a statue of Lionel Messi outside of Camp Nou.

The Catalan giants are eager to bring their former captain back to the club, two years after he left Catalonia for Paris Saint-Germain.

With the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner having just one year left on his current contract in France, the Blaugrana are keen to bring him back to Spain next summer.

Laporta has now devised a master plan to re-sign the 35-year-old, that involves cutting their wage bill by a further £150million through player sales.

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Per reports by La Vanguardia, cited by One Football, the Barcelona chief wants to build a statue of Messi outside Camp Nou as part of a tribute to what he has done for the club over the past two decades.

If completed, Messi will thus join legendary Barcelona players Laszlo Kubala and Johan Cruyff, who already have a sculpture of their likeness near the stadium.

The reports further claim that the Spanish giants have also decided to organise a tribute match in honour of the Argentine genius.

Laporta is keen on mend things up with Messi after how his exit from the club was handled last summer. The Barcelona supremo has reportedly already contacted representatives of Messi to patch up fences.

Messi has struggled to reach the dizzying heights he attained at Barcelona during his first season. However, it appears the dribbling magician has shrugged off his sub-par first term with the Parisians, scoring 8 goals and providing 8 assists in all competitions so far.

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Earlier, Sports Brief reported that Paris Saint-Germain are not happy with Barcelona and are looking to exact some punishment on the Spanish side.

The relationship between the two European giants is fraught with tension, and only appears to be getting worse.

Neymar's move from Camp Nou to France didn't help matters, and Messi leaving the Blaugrana for PSG not long after certainly made things worse.