The judge misestimates the resource of Nike against Messi by contract breach

The holder of the Mercantile Court number 4 of Barcelona has misestimated the resource presented/displayed by Nike against the sentence that gave to the reason to the player of the FC Barcelona Leo Messi in contentious which it maintained with the sport mark by a supposed contract breach on the part of the Argentinean, by that the multinational demanded an indemnification of 5.5 million euros.

The sentence considers that the player did not violate any contract when signing a more substantial agreement with Adidas, while they followed the negotiations with Nike open, because the previous document that signed the player with this last mark was not definitive and therefore "he was not binding".

Thus, esteem which the document that Messi signed with Nike the 23 of May of 2005 "did not include all the details of the contract" and that "in a negotiation process the parts can reach agreements on certain points", but that "until there is not a total agreement the contract does not exist".

In this way, the document signed by Messi, that at that time was minor, "does not happen to be a preliminary agreement within a negotiation process" and, like so, "some lacks legal potentiality".

In that situation, the sentence considers that the player and Adidas "used themselves the circumstance that allowedly the contract between Nike and Messi had not been perfected to break the negotiations" and to celebrate "a contract with a very superior remuneration". 600,000 ANNUAL EUROS.

Messi signed its first contract with Nike in April of 2002, when the player counted 15 years and played already in the inferior categories of the Barça. Two years later a renovation in better conditions considered, but by then Messi was on the verge of making debut as player of the first equipment and the negotiations clogged itself.

During the year that lasted the conversations, Messi continued using clothes of the Nike mark, that to him continued flattering with its products, and finally the 23 of May of 2005 the document was signed object of the dispute, since Nike considers a contract and the player a pre-agreed one.

After the company/signature of the document sub 20 gambled World-wide of soccer, that gained Argentina and of which Messi was chosen better player, and raised the quotation of the Argentinean, whose representatives continued negotiating the details of the contract with the North American company.

Between September and October of that year, Adidas contacted with the player to offer a contract to him of image in better terms than the one of Nike-- 600.000 euros the first year as opposed to the 180,000 that it offered Nike-- after which Nike sent a letter alerting to Adidas on of the existence in a previous agreement with the player.

After that episode, Nike accepted to renegotiate the conditions of the contract of Messi, but at the end of January of 2006 the player sent a letter to Nike giving by finalized his commercial relation and the 31 of he himself month Messi played their first party with the Barça with the boots of Adidas, of that is image from that day.