Messi will come to Thailand: Barca chief

Rossich was here yesterday for the “Chang Champions Cup – FC Barcelona Asian Tour 2013” press conference at the Rajamangala National Stadium to promote the team’s Asian Tour, which starts in China on August 3, in Bangkok on August 7, and in Malaysia on August 10.

The FC Barca boss said that Messi, the ailing four-time Fifa Ballon d’Or winner, has been recovering from a right thigh injury that has limited his appearance for most of the season.

“He has been showing good recovery in the treatment and is now in a good condition. We will send him into the future games, the semi-final of the Champions League and hopefully the final as well,” said Rossich, who also promised that Thai fans would see Messi in the flesh in August along with his first team’s fellow players.

“The whole team will come. We know football is big in this region and is very popular in Thailand; we know we have a big Barca fan base in Thailand. We want to see our supporters here,” added Rossich.

Previously labelled as a “big spender” to recruit star players, Barcelona is now grooming young players from its own La Masia Academy. Messi, along with Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez, all were Ballon d’Or finalists from the same FC for the first time in 2010, which proved the success of its programme.

“We started doing this probably 30 years ago. It’s not something about which you make the decision today and tomorrow we are going to have Messi. But at the same time, will you have Messi or not depends on luck and if you don’t do it, you will never find it,” he said.

“Over the years, we have spent roughly 20 million euros on our youth programme. We used to invest a lot of money hiding good players and we are still doing it. It’s not possible to get all the positions that we need. But the right thing is most of our players are home-grown,” Rossich said.

FC Barcelona will be returning to Thailand after 11 years. They played a friendly with BEC-Tero in 2001. The exhibition against Thailand’s national team is due on August 7, 2013 at 6pm at the Rajamangala National Stadium.

Tickets for the game, priced at Bt4,500, Bt3,500, Bt3,000, Bt2,500, Bt2,000 and Bt1,000, will be available at Thai Ticket Major from May 11, 11am onwards. According to Sorakrit Latthitham, Chang’s senior marketing manager, the Bt4,500 ticket is also to witness a Barca training session on May 7.

Marut Buranasetkul executive chairman and managing director of Thai Beverage Marketing Co, said underprivileged children will be given the opportunity to watch the game for free. Also a special event will be organised prior to the game at CentralWorld for special Barcelona fans. A 10-per-cent ticket discount will be given to those who collect five caps of Chang drinking water or Chang soda. For further updates, visit facebook.com/Changworld.