An extraordinary day unfolded following the news that
Lionel Messi
is set to leave
Barcelona
, provoking an earthquake whose tremors were felt throughout Spanish football and beyond.
Twitter wars, press conferences, briefings, rumours, confusion, chaos, pandemonium. Will he stay? Will he go?
The fact is nobody can say for certain
– not even the player himself – as the wrangling for power among Spanish football’s biggest players was played out for all to see.
In the past, these matters tended to be argued about in confidential boardroom meetings, but in the present day they spill sloppily into the public arena.
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First, in the morning, Barcelona president Joan Laporta spoke in a hastily scheduled press conference to make clear – just in case the statement on Thursday night hadn’t – that La Liga and its pesky sustainability-minded wage and transfer caps were the reason Barcelona, who have debts of €1bn (£850m), could not pay Messi the new deal that had been agreed.
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“To comply with the league’s fair play regulations we had to accept an agreement that mortgaged the club’s TV rights for half a century,” Laporta said.
La Liga president Javier Tebas decided he could not let that one slide and furiously tapped out a response on Twitter.
“Hola @ JoanLaportaFCB,” he began, before pointing out that the Barcelona president knew that La Liga’s deal with private equity firm CVC to provide billions of pounds for clubs did not “mortgage the TV rights of Barcelona for 50 years” but gives the clubs more value to “MORTGAGE your BANKS and solve the great debt” (his caps, not mine).
“As you understood hours ago,” Tebas concluded.
For some context: this is like Premier League chief executive Richard Masters trolling Daniel Levy over
Harry Kane’s will-it-won’t-it-happen move to Manchester City
.
A few things to make clear here, for those of you not up to speed on Spanish football’s financial regulations. La Liga’s spending restrictions – its version of Uefa’s and the Premier League’s comically ineffective Financial Fair Play rules – have been in place since 2013. This is not a new thing.
Each season, a panel of finance experts forensically analyse each club’s accounts and apply a formula to calculate how much each club can spend that season on wages and transfers fees.
What’s new is that the pandemic has torched La Liga’s finances, so Barcelona’s limit has plummeted from €671m to €382.7m. Thus the club is struggling to sign its biggest asset, Messi, to a new contract.
Yet despite throwing the first public punch on Thursday night, Barcelona have options.
“Not only do Barcelona have the right to appeal against the budget that has been imposed, but also the news comes directly on the back of the announcement by La Liga to potentially sell a 10 per cent stake in the league to CVC for around £2.16bn and a record-breaking 10-year broadcasting deal with ESPN worth a reported £1bn,” explains Simon Leaf, head of leading sports lawyers Mishcon de Reya, who have worked on a number of major La Liga transfers in recent years.
“Both of which could significantly change Barcelona’s financial position and enable the club to conclude the new Messi deal were a new budget to be agreed.”
For the sake of brevity, we shall gloss over the fact Barcelona oppose the CVC deal, not wanting to cede control of their club to outsiders. Meaning they are effectively against a deal that could solve the Messi-Barcelona-La Liga impasse.
Next, Pep Guardiola of Manchester City – one of the few clubs who could afford Messi’s wages –
was thrown into the mix as a result of his obligation to speak to the press on Friday ahead of Saturday’s Community Shield
.
With the prospect of a front three next season of Grealish-Kane-Messi, a few City fans reached for the popcorn only for Guardiola to explain that Messi was “not in our thoughts”, pointing out that they were convinced to spend £100m on Jack Grealish and dress him in the acclaimed No 10 shirt having been convinced that Messi would stay at Barcelona.
That City’s official announcement of the much-protracted Grealish deal came within hours of the Messi announcement on Thursday night was one of life’s quirks of fate.
So all eyes have turned, for the time being, to Paris Saint-Germain. It emerged that
Messi had contacted PSG manager Mauricio Pochettino on Thursday
, and after initially believing they could not afford him – they already pay huge salaries to Neymar and Kylian Mbappe – worked out overnight that perhaps they could.
Pochettino told the media on Friday afternoon that a deal “could happen”.
“When you talk about players of his stature I think that many clubs, and in this case Paris St-Germain, these opportunities sometimes come up and sometimes they don’t,” he said. “The club is working hard, as I said, and if there is any information we will let you know. In every case, we are evaluating the options, and of course this is one of those.”
That settled that then. But wait. Step forward Chelsea, who by the end of the day were reported by Spanish paper
AS
to be convening urgent meetings about the prospect of signing him.
“Given the importance of iconic stars to the value of the La Liga brand and its worldwide appeal, it is not pure speculation to consider that this tension between club, league and governing body could ultimately lead to a relaxation of the economic controls to enable Messi to stay,” Leaf adds.
So after the earthquake has subsided, left behind crumbling tower blocks and upturned cars, could it be that Messi simply stays where he is, after all?
