Lionel Messi Set to Buy Eldense Football Club

Lionel Messi is preparing to swap the pitch for the boardroom in Spanish football – and this time, the move looks serious.

According to Spanish daily Marca, the Argentine icon has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Eldense, a club newly promoted to Spain’s second division and based in Elda, in the province of Alicante. If the deal is completed, Messi will own the club outright, with no third-party investors involved.

It would be his second step into Spanish club ownership in a matter of months. Earlier this year he moved into the Catalan game by purchasing Cornellà, a third-division side. Eldense would push that strategy up a level, taking him directly into the professional ranks of LaLiga’s second tier.

This is not a vanity purchase dressed up as nostalgia. Those close to the project describe a clear intention: Messi wants to invest his legacy back into the sport that made him. Eldense offers a compelling canvas – a historic club, freshly back in the Segunda División, in a region not far from Catalonia, where Messi plans to settle once his playing days at Inter Miami are over.

The timing is striking. Off the pitch, the club is in transition. On it, the mood is bleak.

Eldense have collected just two points from their first four league matches. The poor start cost coach Claudio Barragán his job last Monday, making him the first managerial casualty of the second division season. The dugout is empty, the team is drifting, and the next decisions will shape the campaign.

All of this unfolds against a backdrop of shifting ownership. Eldense has already changed hands once in the modern era. In October 2015, an international investment group with Colombian roots, led by businessman Juan Carlos Trujillo, bought the club from Pascual Pérez. More recently, rumours swirled around Argentine figure Ricardo Beni and a possible takeover worth around 12 million euros. Those whispers faded. Messi’s name has returned with far greater weight.

For now, the agreement remains provisional. Final legal and contractual work is still under way, including financial due diligence. The Spanish National Sports Council must sign off before any announcement becomes official. The expectation, according to the report, is that completion could arrive within days.

If that green light comes, Eldense will not just gain a new owner. They will inherit the most recognisable name in world football at the top of their structure, a man still playing in MLS while quietly assembling a portfolio of Spanish clubs.

From Elda’s struggling dressing room to Messi’s long-term vision, the question becomes unavoidable: can one of the game’s greatest players now prove just as decisive from the boardroom as he once was with the ball at his feet?