FC Barcelona's financial guarantor Jose Elias claims Lionel Messi did not cry because he was unable to continue at the Camp Nou.
Messi's 21-year spell with the Catalan outfit came to an end in June after his contract expired and the club were unable to re-sign him due to their financial crisis.
Elias has listed the reasons Barcelona were right to let Messi leave and claims his tears at the farewell were not for his departure.
"The salary structure of the club: we had to face certain salary cuts that would have been difficult to defend.
"Secondly, we did not have the money to pay him and we were bending over backwards to pay him in instalments, which is what Paris Saint-Germain are now doing.
"You have to be kidding yourself to think that is sustainable.
"And thirdly there was the need to generate a new team and some fresh excitement and with Messi you could not do it. He is of a certain age to not be at Barca."
He added "Messi did not cry because he did not continue at Barca. He cried for a sum of things, not because he did not continue at Bara.
"Messi was running out of a cycle. And to that is added that he has made life in Barcelona and that people were integrated."
