Here is all you need to know about Argentine football agent Horacio Gaggioli and the owner of the napkin contract of Messi
An auction will commence at £300,000 ($381,500) to purchase the paper napkin that sealed the deal between FC Barcelona’s club and international soccer player Lionel Messi, a report in Time suggests.
Who is football agent Horacio Gaggioli owner of the napkin FC Barcelona first ever contract of Lionel Messi
On behalf of Argentine agent Horacio Gaggioli, the artefact was offered to the global auction house Bonhams. When Carles Rexach, the sporting director of Barcelona at the time, reached an agreement with Gaggioli, Messi’s agent, and Jorge Messi, the adolescent from Argentina who would go on to become the team’s all-time greatest scorer, the napkin was signed in December 2000.
🚨🧐 The historic handkerchief that Lionel Messi signed to join Barcelona will be displayed at a public auction. Horacio Gaggioli, Messi’s agent, will display it at auction at a price starting from €350,000.
– (@LaVanguardia) pic.twitter.com/dG4herfcUy
— Bᴀʀᴄ̧ᴀVᴇʀsᴇ (@BarcaVerse_) January 31, 2024
Rexach’s invitation to lunch, prompted by his dissatisfaction with the lack of response to his son’s initial trials at the Spanish club, set off a momentous event in football history. As per the inscription found on the napkin belonging to the Pompeia tennis club:
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.”
That same evening, the deal was officially signed by Joan Gaspart, the club’s then-president. A month later, Barcelona completed Messi’s signing, bringing him on board for a 20-year contract.
Who is Horacio Gaggioli?
Horacio Gaggioli is a football agent who hails from Spain. He had been told by his Argentinean partners how good Lionel Messi, a young prospect from Rosario, was.
In 2013, Horacio Gaggioli assisted in transferring 13-year-old Messi from Newell’s Old Boys to the Catalan giants. Meanwhile, Messi, the FC Barcelona legend could have joined arch-rivals Real Madrid instead. However, Gaggioli disclosed that if the agent had chosen to move to the Spanish capital instead, things might have turned out differently on Messi’s 30th birthday. He told Globoesporte:
Due to life circumstances, I went to live in Barcelona and I brought him to Barca for a trial. But I was about to live in Madrid.
He further stated:
If that had happened, I would have taken him to Madrid for a trial. That’s life, those are the details.
Today, Messi could have been a Real Madrid player, of course.
The family wanted to come to Spain, to the city where I was to have some support.”