Barcelona president Joan Laporta repeated on Tuesday that negotiations with Lionel Messi "are going well", less than a month before the Argentine star's club contract expires. "We are in talks with Leo's representatives," Laporta said at the official presentation of centre-back Eric Garcia, who has joined from Manchester City, as a Barcelona player. "I said it the other day, it's going well and we hope they continue to make progress." 

"We want to agree a new contract with Leo. It's going well, but it's not done." Messi's contract with Barcelona expires on June 30. Laporta said signing Messi to a new contract did not depend on the outcome of an audit the club is carrying out to find out the exact state of its finances. "We more or less already have the results for this year under control. This audit, when we finish it in July, will give us more data, but for this deal in particular, we had already made a provision, we had prepared a strategy," Laporta said.