Remembering Messi's first contract, 20 years after it was signed... On a napkin

On December 14, 2000, Lionel Messi signed his first contract with Barcelona, he was 12 years old at the time and the contract was written up on a napkin at the Club de Tennis Pompeia cafeteria as the Camp Nou club rushed to tie the talented forward down.

Barcelona technical secretary Carles Rexach was at the meeting alongside Josep Maria Minguella and Messi's then representative Horacio Gaggioli.

"In the presence of Messrs Minguella and Horacio, Carles Rexach, technical secretary of FC Barcelona, a commitment is made under his responsibility, and despite some opinions against, to sign the player Lionel Messi as and when receive the agreed quantities," the napkin reads.

Those opinions against the signing came most notably from Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona at the time, who wasn't willing to pay such a large amount of money for such a young player.

However, Rexach insisted on the signing, almost without the green light from Laporta, after Gaggioli had warned of interest from other clubs.

Gaggioli still has the napkin, which is held securely in the Credit Andorra bank, and he is still in the agency business. He advises players like Marco Asensio these days.

Gaggioli has received a number of big offers to sell the document, but he will only consider loaning it to the FC Barcelona museum.

"I think it should be there, in an honourable place alongside Messi's Ballon d'Ors because that napkin changed the contemporary history of the club," he admitted to Infobae.