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Lionel Messi and Barcelona: The end of the battle for the club’s soul

By Keith Lisenbee

FC Barcelona fans gather outside the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on August 26, 2020 after Barcelona's Argentinian forward Lionel Messi announced his desire to leave the club. - Lionel Messi's bombshell request to leave Barcelona is expected to spark a legal battle over a multi-million-dollar buy-out clause but also raises the question of which club could afford him in the heat of the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Pau BARRENA / AFP) (Photo by PAU BARRENA/AFP via Getty Images)
FC Barcelona fans gather outside the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on August 26, 2020 after Barcelona's Argentinian forward Lionel Messi announced his desire to leave the club. - Lionel Messi's bombshell request to leave Barcelona is expected to spark a legal battle over a multi-million-dollar buy-out clause but also raises the question of which club could afford him in the heat of the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Pau BARRENA / AFP) (Photo by PAU BARRENA/AFP via Getty Images) /
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Barcelona
President of FC Barcelona Josep Maria Bartomeu (Photo by Pedro Salado/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images) /

Josep Bartomeu is a president who values radical collectivism over individual triumph.

In Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, she introduced the struggle of the individual against the collective.

Josep Bartomeu’s ethics and philosophy, as demonstrated by his recent actions, are socialist and collectivist, which is Barcelona’s ethos taken to its radical, but logical, extreme.

In The Fountainhead, the antagonist was a character named Ellsworth Toohey, who was a socialist and collectivist who did everything in his power to destroy individual achievement and greatness because of his deep resentment of it and also to obtain power for himself.

At Barça, Bartomeu has done nothing but attempt to dismantle and eradicate the individual greatness that was brought on by the Cruyff revolution.

He is the Ellsworth Toohey in an ideological war of radical altruism and collectivism against individual achievement.

Barcelona’s president, like Toohey, is also an adherent of the philosophy of nihilism.

Nihilism is the absence of moral values and principles, but more importantly, a belief in nothing but the destruction of any morality and philosophy.

The hiring of Ronald Koeman as FCB manager appears to be a nod towards Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola, and Lionel Messi.

Yet, his actions so far have been designed to finalize the destruction of the radical revolution that has brought incredible club success in the last 25 years.

In other words, Bartomeu is Daenerys Targaryen torching King’s Landing so that he can finish his reign by ruling over the smoldering ashes of the Camp Nou.

A victory by the club board and president turns what was once a grand vision that matched the cultural, historical, and philosophical vibe of Barcelona into a radical dark idea of nihilism.

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