Lionel Messi has had his ideals used against him.
Josep Bartomeu used Lionel Messi’s greatness, integrity, productivity, and sense of justice against him.
The primary goal of all second-hand people who are authoritarian collectivists is to crush the individual spirit of others to make them subservient.
The 33-year-old Argentine star, in his interview, described his own forced capitulation:
"“Now I am going to continue in the club because the president told me that the only way to leave was to pay the €700 million clause, and that this is impossible. There was another way and it was to go to trial. I would never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, which gave me everything since I arrived.” — Lionel Messi via Goal.com"
These words illustrate someone who is now a prisoner to a club rather than a partner by mutual agreement.
These statements illuminate an individual who has to deal with a team president who has no morality, virtues, or rational ethics.
In Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged, she described how people try to destroy individual achievement by turning their virtues against them in an attempt to accumulate unearned values by preaching about the common good.
In the novel, the character Hank Reardon suffered through having his family, work, productivity, and love twisted into the weapon of his destruction.
He had friends who implored him to see with clarity what was happening around him so that he would seek his own path.
In the end, Reardon finally realized that his consent made him the victim by continuing to supply his enemies with the same weapons they were using against him.
As a result of this knowledge, he walked away.
In other words, he went on strike.
Lionel Messi tried to do the same thing by sending the fax to FC Barcelona. He wanted to produce greatness on the pitch for himself and everything that he held dear.
The world’s most outstanding player had his virtues and the values he cherishes the most (e.g., loyalty, family, integrity) used against him by Bartomeu, who took the club’s motto and twisted it into a dark power play.