Barcelona are reportedly not allowed to retire the iconic number 10 shirt, vacated by club legend Lionel Messi.
The 34-year-old has officially left the club and joined Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night, signing a lucrative two-year deal with the option to extend it by a further year.
According to the Daily Mail, La Liga teams – as instructed by the Spanish footballing body – must allocate each member of their squad the numbers one to 25 before each league campaign, with any additional reserve players allowed to take on shirt numbers from 26 to 50.
However, if Barca decided to retire Messi's number 10 shirt, then they would sacrifice a first-team place in their squad.
This would not be the first time that a Spanish club would have retired a shirt number, as Espanyol have done it with the number 21, following the death of defender Daniel Jarque in 2009.
Messi began his career at Barcelona with the numbers 30 and then 19, before receiving the famous number 10 for the 2008-09 campaign, following the departure of Ronaldinho to AC Milan.
Oliver Thomas
