Both La Liga and the Catalan regional health authorities have opened an investigation into a meal organised for the Barcelona first team squad by Leo Messi at his house on Monday.
The meal was supposedly for the players to prepare for their last four games of the season in which they are battling out for their La Liga title against Atletico Madrid (who they play on Saturday), Real Madrid and Sevilla, but it could have breached health protocols and leave Messi and those attending open to a fine.
Although the Barcelona players and coaching staff are in what is known as a ‘work bubble’ and club sources consider the meal to have been work related, the fact that the players’ partners also attended the meal means that bubble was not respected.
Health protocols in place for the Catalan region in the north-east of Spain limit the number of people present at social gatherings to just six and even though the meal was outside in the open air in the garden of Messi’s house, with diners divided up into tables of six, over 30 people were present.
Meritxell Budo, the Council for the Presidency at the Catalan regional authority commented that “we know what happened and we have seen the images (of the get-together). The Public Health Agency is responsible for this, they have also seen the images and they will make a technical evaluation in the coming days and tell us how to proceed.”
