No, Messi did not send his transfer request to Barca via fax
You’ll probably see many people today taking the piss out of Lionel Messi for letting Barcelona know of his desire to leave Camp Nou via fax. Who would have thought that the greatest footballer ever was such a traditionalist, with a house full of antique rotary phones and gramophones?
Well, as funny as that image may be, it’s probably not true. What we know for certain is that Messi didn’t send his transfer request via fax, but actually via something called a burofax.
Now if you don’t know what that is, that’s fine. According to this Twitter bot, the word had never even been used by the New York Times until, well, yesterday.
burofax
— New New York Times (@NYT_first_said) August 25, 2020
A burofax is a very particular type of service and is sent when the sender needs to be able to legally prove that the recipient did, in fact, receive what was sent.
With a fax, you could easily claim that the fax machine was broken – who would dream of doing that? – but with a burofax, there’s proof of delivery.
The reason he used this method is to prove to a judge, should it come to it, that he sent the communique to the club before the date that his much-publicised break clause expired.
The clause will likely be a sticking point between player and club for some time to come. It states that Messi can leave for free before the end of the season if he notifies Barcelona.
The end of the season would generally be the end of May but, Messi’s lawyers will likely argue, due to the delay and subsequent extension of the season due to coronavirus, the end of the season was pushed back to August.
So too, they’ll say, should his clause. It’s reported that Messi sent the burofax on August 20, three days before the Champions League which signalled the end of this extremely protracted club season.
