Source: Messi agrees to buy second club in Spain

BREAKING: Lionel Messi reaches a preliminary agreement to buy Spanish second division side Eldense, his second club purchase in Spain, a source confirms.

Messi is buying his second Spanish club, and he's still an active player.

The man himself has reached a preliminary agreement to take over Eldense, a second division side currently owned by a Colombian investment group. The deal still needs due diligence and a sign off from Spain's National Sports Council, but the intent is there in writing.

And it's a pattern now. Earlier this year he bought Cornellà, a semi professional fifth division team near Barcelona. He's also got a piece of Deportivo LSM in Uruguay alongside Luis Suárez. Eldense would be his first fully professional club in Spain, a side founded in 1921 that only got back to the second tier this summer, and they haven't won any of their four games so far.

Here's the catch though. If both his clubs ever climb into the same division, Spanish rules won't let him own both. At 39, Messi is building an empire faster than he's building an exit from playing.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.