Oh, believe me, God is pretty much at fault here.
Anyone that has read me in this thread or related ones knows how much I rated him and wanted him in our club, but if you're the best player in the world, and the best paid at the same time, holding a choke on the club's finances with your contract, you can't play the card of "I'll play for another year" in June and "I want to leave for free" 3 weeks before the season starts, that's a bomb for the club. Not the board, the whole institution.
And I don't even care about how right or wrong the board will be in this saga, Messi has been under 6 different presidents since he joined us, probably 8 different boards and so on, up until a week ago the unnegotiable things in this club were the badge, the stadium, Cruyff and Messi, what's two years of being worse on the UCL when the club has surrounded you with the best available (or the best you asked for) for 15 seasons? as much as he's given to the club, he's been paid handsomely to do so, and in the end, he's not in debt with the fans for anything, but he very well could've guided the club into a new era if he wanted too, he wants to bail? good for him, but it has repercussions on his legacy, he seems glad to accept them so, in the end, he says a lot about his personality and principles.