FC Barcelona have failed to convince La Liga that they can sign Lionel Messi through their viability plan, according to SPORT.

The club's greatest ever player walked to Paris Saint Germain on a free transfer when Barca couldn't navigate Financial Fair Play rules and offer him a new contract in 2021.

Two years later, the Argentine's terms at the Parc des Princes will expire on June 30 and he looks likely to return to his boyhood club if president Joan Laporta can make the numbers work.

This is easier said than done when the Catalans are mired in debts and have been warned by La Liga chief Javier Tebas to shed €200 million ($218 million) from the wage bill.

It has forced them to draw up a viability plan, which according to Gerard Romero shows how Barca plan to make two big player sales so that they can bring in four new stars this summer.

SPORT report that the viability plan has thus far fallen short of convincing the necessary figures after being presented to the Spanish top flight, which means that Messi will not be returning to Camp Nou as things stand.

La Liga find it "very complicated" that Barca can meet the demands and targets that they have set themselves to cut costs, and the formula they have used so far to make up for a lack of income in the way of the sale of assets and economic levers has been dismissed by La Liga which means that resorting to these types of solutions is useless.

Not being able to sign Messi again is not the only problem Barca have if the viability plan falls flat on its face. Elsewhere in the first team squad, they cannot register the new contracts of Gavi and Ronald Araujo, who can therefore leave for free on July 1.

While Chelsea have already approached Gavi according to AS, Araujo would find no end of suitors on the market given his rise to become one of the best central defenders in the world and a Uruguay international.

Barca also wouldn't be able to sign Ilkay Gundogan and Inigo Martinez on free transfers, as they would encounter the same difficulties registering their deals as has been seen with Gavi and Araujo.

Put simply, Laporta and sporting director Mateu Alemany have to return to the drawing board post haste and conjur up new ideas capable of ironing out these problems.