According to Josep Maria Bartomeu, the first thing visiting directors ask him when they take up their seat at the Camp Nou before kick-off is almost always: is Messi playing? There’s so much to discuss, from sport to politics, identity and innovation, law and human rights, money too and lots of it, plus plans to change football for ever, but when he says it, it makes sense. His guests are football fans, too, Barcelona’s president says, and if looking at some of the people who buy clubs, that doesn’t entirely convince, 13 hours after Messi’s free-kick against Liverpool it does feel implausible for any conversation to start anywhere else. Including this one.

Ultimately, it ends there too, via a circuitous route. The morning after Barcelona’s 3-0 Champions League victory the crowds have gone, but Messi has not and never does – not entirely. His picture is everywhere. Outside, a small queue forms for the stadium tour and they are all talking about him. Inside, in the hush of the offices, where many have known him since he was 13, staff are too. Bartomeu claims he was sure Messi would score. “I wouldn’t even give him the Ballon d’Or,” he jokes. “He’s beyond that now, in a category of his own. There are great players, but he’s in a different dimension.”

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Dimension is an appropriate word and not just for Messi: as Bartomeu sits stirring his coffee in a neat boardroom, it fits what follows. Bartomeu, who became president in 2014 and whose term ends in 2021, says football has undergone an “enormous transformation” since he became a director in 2003, and it won’t stop here: “We’re laying the foundations for the future.” That means big changes, in La Liga, the Champions League and the Club World Cup.

At one point he adds: “You’ll like it.” At least in part, perhaps, because he can sense he might be wrong.

The night before, 98,299 people were in the Camp Nou, the noise off the scale. Millions watched around the world. “The Champions League is la leche,” Bartomeu says. La leche is the milk – the business, in other words. Which rather prompts the question: why change it? “Because we’re going to change it for the better,” he says. Bartomeu is opposed to playing European games at the weekend and to a closed Champions League. But he claims: “Fans ask us for more European games. And from 2024 the new format will allow that.”

When we played United, it was the first time they’d been here in 11 years. Against Liverpool it was the first since 2006

He continues: “I’ll give you an example. When we played Manchester United [in the quarter-finals], it was the first time they’d been here in 11 years. Last night against Liverpool was the first since 2006.” Scarcity makes it special, surely, but Bartomeu insists: “It can’t be that we play many games but not against teams like Liverpool and United.” And what about teams like Ajax, this year’s revelation? Surely, football can’t afford to close the door to them? “No, no, no,” Bartomeu insists, “no one’s talking about a closed league or a Super League. It will be an evolution, and attractive. It won’t be a revolution.”

Change is not just coming in Europe. In fact, the point is that football will soon be leaving Europe. Barcelona were at the forefront of La Liga’s plans to take a league game to the US and although the Spanish federation blocked it, preventing Girona-Barça from taking place in Miami, Bartomeu will not give up. “We want to continue ‘footballising’ the United States,” he says. “I want there to be three games abroad every year to promote La Liga – one in the US, one in the Middle East, one in Asia. They watch us on TV and it’s a way of getting close to those fans.”

What about fans at home? What if it had been Barcelona‑Girona instead of Girona‑Barcelona? “Then we wouldn’t have gone, obviously.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I wouldn’t even give Messi the Ballon d’O. He’s beyond that now, in a category of his own,.’ says Bartomeu. Photograph: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

So how do you justify that you won’t play abroad but they should? How do Girona justify going to their fans? “Ask the president of Girona. Other presidents rang me and said: ‘Hey, why didn’t you call me?’

“Don’t forget, the LFP [La Liga] competes with the Premier League, that’s our big rival. We have to try things to help us to compete.”

I told Fifa it doesn’t make sense that in every sport you can give a bursary to a kid – but not in football'

The risk of being eclipsed by England and talk of competition raises another question: clubs such as Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, propped up by states. Asked about the threat they pose, Bartomeu responds: “It’s not a threat, it’s a reality.” His expression of his “faith” in financial fair play feels a little lukewarm; he notes that PSG escaped punishment on a technicality, the investigation failing to address “the issue itself”; and there is a striking difference in punishment with that for breaking regulations on signing under-16s.

There, Barcelona – like Madrid, Atlético and Chelsea – were handed transfer bans and Bartomeu is more forthright. “I told Fifa it doesn’t make sense that in every sport everywhere in the world, you can give a bursary, a scholarship, to a kid, offering them the chance to go to a school to learn and develop – but not in football,” he says. “I said: ‘Change it.’ You’re restricting someone’s right to personal development. There’s even a case for asking if the ban goes against children’s rights to education.”

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If this is a moral question, another one is raised by the fact that it is not just the league planning to go abroad. The Spanish federation, which blocked plans for Miami, has announced a final-four format for the Super Cup – reportedly, set to be played in Saudi Arabia. Some have been dismayed. Bartomeu concedes ethics must inform every decision, including where you play, but seeks to draw a distinction between helping to provide political legitimacy and playing. Indeed, he suggests there are moral reasons to go rather than stay.

“Football has become global and more democratic. It reaches millions and getting close to those people is about respect. As a club we go beyond sport to become involved in social issues – we have projects in Saudi Arabia. The kids we work with can’t be blamed for not having spaces to play because their governments aren’t adequate. We want to think of people. The refugee camps in Greece, in Italy, are full of kids. If you analyse the policies of governments, in Europe and elsewhere, we wouldn’t agree with what they do but Barcelona’s foundation goes to those places. People and governments are different.”

Yet politics is often unavoidable and the club that faced Las Palmas behind closed doors as a protest the day the Spanish state prevented a referendum on Catalan independence know that; they are the most politicised club in Spain. “Politics and sport mix,” Bartomeu says. “It’s a reality that in the life of the club, there is politics.

“Our position is clear and it’s historic: first, we’re democratic and freedom of expression is rooted in our club. There are 145,000 socios [members], and everyone has their own political view. We’re plural and transversal. We also believe in the right to decide. For people, not politicians. How? Voting. We have a minority of members who think our position is tepid, others think it’s risky, but 77% said they agreed with our stance. We won’t take sides but we defend our language, our history. We’re a Catalanist club, our roots are Catalan, 96% of socios are Catalan.

“I didn’t want to play against Las Palmas. What happened was very serious. People who wanted to vote – it doesn’t matter what they wanted to vote for – weren’t allowed to. I wanted to change the date but we weren’t allowed to so we played. Some players wanted to, some didn’t. The difficult decision wasn’t playing or not, it was whether to open the stadium.

“We know Barcelona is the best ambassador Catalonia has. We decided not to let the fans in because, first, the social situation in the stands might have been difficult and, second, there’s no better way to explain to the world what’s happening than playing 90 minutes with that image of empty stands. ‘There’s no people.’ ‘No, because this is happening.’ That image went around the world – it’s very powerful.”

This morning, another image goes around the world. Messi looks out from newspapers globally and from the stadium facade, his presence seemingly permanent. One day it will be. Work has begun on the new Camp Nou. When it finishes, when he does, will there be a statue of Messi to join that of Laszlo Kubala, Bartomeu is asked. “No,” he says, “there will be 10 of them.”