Lionel Messi's Dramatic Tearful Barcelona Exit: An Analysis of the Club Image Repair and Fans’ Responses

Abstract

This study analyses the image repair strategies used by Barcelona after the dramatic exit of its top player, Lionel Messi. Barcelona's image repair efforts included President Laporta's press conference, in which he attempted to repair the club's image by justifying and explaining the situation. The study also evaluated the fans' responses to Barcelona's strategies to determine how fans reacted to such discourse. Therefore, first, it uses Benoit's image repair theory to analyse Barcelona's rhetoric. Second, it conducts a thematic analysis of 2613 comments from active YouTube users. The results show Barcelona's failure to repair its image following Messi's departure. The club employed the denial strategy by shifting the blame. It also used reducing offensiveness through transcendence, differentiation and bolstering. Finally, it deployed evading responsibility through defeasibility. The thematic analysis of fans’ responses to Laporta’s speech shows that Laporta failed to convince fans of his arguments. Over and above, he infuriated them with his speech. Therefore, it is right to say that his image repair strategies were ineffective and unimpressive. The findings suggest that when the audience is eager to see corrective action, it is difficult to accept other strategies that do not align with their desires. The results of this study have several important implications for future practice. First, organisations should consider audience orientations through audience analysis before employing image repair strategies. Second, sports organisations should use media framing before major decisions to avoid shocking fans. Keywords: Thematic analysis, Barcelona, Leo Messi, Joan Laporta, image repair.