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| Messi signs for PSG |
Messi reaches an agreement with PSG: two years and between 35 and 40 million net. Controversy Barcelona in ‘shock’ after resigning Messi has not yet been able to register his four signings. Messi, in tears “This year I was not prepared to leave”
The Fútbol Club Barcelona has had to deal throughout its history with several traumatic farewells that dragged the entity into an emotional and sporting abyss from which it was difficult to get out. But the case of Leo Messi, with the number 30 with which he debuted at the Camp Nou and whose signing has already been made official by PSG, is different from the rest. For being the best footballer the entity ever had. Due to the conviction among the fans that their ties were so firm that they would never wear another shirt that was not the Barça one. And, above all, by an element as bloody as a surprise, and the incomprehension that accompanies it.
Just a week ago the footballer himself was convinced that he would renew his contract. In just five days he has been pushed to take the door due to the inability of a ruined Barça to assume his salary, to cry loudly in his goodbye while pointing to the president, and to smile from ear to ear when his contract was confirmed by PSG. A deal arranged at the speed of light by the patriarch, Jorge. Fairy tales and this one had gone on for two decades, usually save the sordid part for last.
Leo Messi, 34, as demanding on the pitch as he is on the negotiating board, has secured a tailor-made contract at PSG. He will play two seasons with the Parisians, although with the possibility of extending the link for one more season. It will have an annual tab that will be around 40 million euros net – transfer fees aside. In the last contract that Josep Maria Bartomeu signed, the Argentine could earn a maximum of 555,237,619 gross euros for four seasons, including the employment contract, the image rights contract, and the different bonuses. It remains to be seen if the Qatari royal family, which owns PSG through the Qatar Sports Investments fund, assures it of other types of agreements that have to do with the promotion of the Qatar World Cup in winter 2022. Precisely, one of the great vital sporting objectives of Leo Messi before concluding his football career. The challenge of matching the feat of Maradona in Mexico ’86 is still alive in the head of Rosario.
The reception that Messi had on his arrival at the Parisian airfield of Le Bourget, with thousands of fans waiting for the arrival of a new Sun King, put a Barcelona as desolate as it was ramshackle in front of the mirror. Messi also did not hesitate to apologize for a new home with a shirt that read: “Ici C’est Paris.” Then he would go to undergo a medical examination, before being presented this Wednesday as a new PSG footballer at the Parque de Los Príncipes.
Thus ends a 20-year journey of Messi in Barcelona that did not find a way to retain the footballer. In the early morning before his landing in Paris, some sources suggested an approach to the footballer’s environment by Barcelona. Both parties denied the matter, thus definitively closing the three-ring circus.
“Find out at the club,” replied Jorge Messi still at the Castelldefels mansion when asked by the person responsible for this outcome. The relationship between the footballer’s father and Barcelona broke down after Joan Laporta’s refusal to take on his contract proposal. Ferran Reverter, CEO of the club, was one of those who were most convinced that the proposal to Messi was unaffordable. An opinion shared by some of the entity’s guarantors, with their own assets at stake.
The economic ruin of the Barça entity (it will present losses of 487 million euros last year), the inability to adjust its contract in the parameters of LaLiga’s Financial Fair Play, and the refusal to accept Javier Tebas’s deal with the fund of CVC investment that would have allowed the registration of the forward (with the envelope of the war for the Super League as a fundamental part) ended up precipitating the pitiful goodbye of Rosario.
PSG will thus have one of the best offensive tridents in history, managing to bring together Neymar, Mbappé, and Messi himself. Because the intention of the Parisian club does not go through getting rid of Mbappé, no matter how much the French international, a negative protagonist in the last European Championship, refuses to renew a contract that ends next year and has Real Madrid on the prowl. In fact, PSG, in the video with which they announced the agreement with Messi, did not hesitate to promote their new troika by placing the Argentine flag between the shirts of Neymar and Mbappé.
The laxity of the committee in charge of financial control in France, ready not to apply sanctions until the end of the World Cup in Qatar, and the traditional blind eye of UEFA on these matters allows a PSG that plans to lose between 200 and 300 million euros the 2021-2022 season can continue to accumulate posh footballers.
The Parisian entity also had budgeted sales for this summer worth 180 million euros. For now, only left-back Mitchel Bakker has been released, for whom he has collected seven million euros after his transfer to Bayer Leverkusen. Industry sources maintain that PSG will have no problems in this regard given the continuous injections from Qatar from sponsorships.
Messi was clear about which path to choose since Barcelona withdrew that five-season offer (although only a minimum of two as a player) for which he would have charged about 200 million euros gross. At PSG he will meet good friends, such as the former Barça player Neymar, who was also seized in his day by the Parisians after paying the 222 million euro clause, and compatriots such as Ángel di María, Leandro Paredes, or coach Mauricio Pochettino, who He contacted Messi himself at the end of last week to explain the benefits of his new destination.
This summer, PSG chaired by Nasser Al-Khelaifi already paid 60 million euros for former Real Madrid player and former Inter winger Achraf Hakimi, in addition to 16 million for Danilo Pereira, former Porto midfielder. Georginio Wijnaldum, who rejected Barcelona for having received a superior offer, former Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, the best footballer of the last European Championship, and former Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos arrived with the letter of freedom.
Messi, after passing the medical examination on Tuesday, is expected to offer a press conference this Wednesday at the Parc des Princes. His sporting debut, on the other hand, will have to wait once he recovers the training time lost after winning the last Copa América in Maracana. It is speculated that it could premiere in front of the Stade de Reims on August 29.
María Casado presents his girlfriend in Starlite: who is Martina, the artist who has conquered the journalist? Messi, who won his last Champions League in 2015, will have the challenge of offering PSG that continental title that the Qatari royal family has been fighting for since they bought PSG in 2011.