BARCELONA STUNNED THE football world and sent suitors scurrying for their chequebooks when they announced that Lionel Messi would be leaving the club this summer.
The Spanish aristocrats have been unable to agree a deal with the 34-year-old Argentina international which will allow them to comply with LaLiga’s financial regulations, leading to a parting of the ways.
Here, the PA news agency takes a look at some of the issues behind a momentous decision.
How did it come to this?
We should perhaps not be too surprised. Messi signalled his intention to leave the Nou Camp last summer, believing he could do so on a free transfer under the terms of his existing contract. A €700million – around £629million – buy-out clause prevented him from doing so, but the seeds were sown regardless of the club’s financial difficulties.
Are Barcelona really that badly off?
In a word, yes. Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported earlier this year that the club’s debt stood at €1.173billion – £850million – and their wage bill currently accounts for 110% of their income, a situation president Joan Laporta knows means they are on the wrong side of financial fair play regulations.
How expensive is Messi?
Very. Reports suggest Messi’s basic salary amounts to €45million, or £38.2million, and that he was willing to take a cut of more than 50% to sign a new deal. Barca’s statement claims the two parties had reached an agreement, but that the LaLiga rules simply do not allow it to be completed.
Is the club’s announcement a bargaining ploy?
A good question. There is little doubt that Messi’s profile has promoted LaLiga’s product to a worldwide audience and his battle with Cristiano Ronaldo for the title of the greatest of all time is the soap opera which keeps giving. The governing body will not want to be seen as the villain of the piece, the role in which they appear to have been cast by the Nou Camp hierarchy. However, whether that and the public outcry which will inevitably follow the news will prompt a relaxation of the rules remains to be seen.
If not Barcelona, then where next for Messi?
Manchester City and Paris St Germain are two of the few clubs in world football with pockets deep enough to contemplate a move for a man whose advancing years are unlikely to provide a barrier to his future employment. Major League Soccer, where his enduring quality would enable him to play on for many years more, could provide a halfway house towards a return to his roots in Argentina, but the romantics in Rosario will inevitably pin their hopes on Messi’s suggestion that he would one day like to return to the club where he launched his glittering career, Newell’s Old Boys.
Bernard Jackman and Murray Kinsella are joined by Craig Ray on The42 Rugby Weekly to preview the deciding third Lions Test on Saturday.
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Mad to think Denmark scored more in the Aviva than South Africa in the rugby
Though there were mistakes throughout by management, anyone who thinks the solution is to bring in a new messiah and to try and play attacking football is not looking deep enough. Of any of the fifty or so possible starters for an Irish team, the only one who could play that style is arter.
Dublin has a much lower population of GAA players than soccer, yet produces Diarmuid Connolly and Ciarain Kilkenny, both players who are wonderful passers of a football, with vision and attacking creativity. Soccer in Dublin produces no such players.
Irish soccer needs an overhaul similar to the one Belgium had in 2000, Spain had in 94, and Germany had in 2002. The style has to change from the age of six. Otherwise, it’s a long freewheel downhill from here
@Chucky Arlaw: the FAI have an awful lot to answer for. Useless
@Chucky Arlaw: are u saying the only player in the panel capable of playing good football is Arter?? Is that correct or have I misunderstood something?
So if McCleans shot goes in and the dynamics of the game change, and we hold on for an hour, we have no such problems in our game anymore? Give it a rest you bore it’s one game we got smashed cos of 2 sloppy goals in 3 minutes which was effectively the game ender. Put the fossil brush and magnifying glass away you pretentious aul eejit.
The North were brave when they appointed Micheal O’Neil and were rewarded. A league of Ireland manager who was progressive, on an upward curve in his career not winding his career down.
Why not take a punt on Stephen Kenny, he’s shown that he can coach players of a certain standard to perform well past expectation and win games against teams with vast superior resources.
The lack of preperation and lack of belief in the players ability means its time for a change at the helm. Would give anything to see Chris Hughton given a go
The north and south join up now stop this silly politics
@Aidan O: pour one bucket of muck into another bucket of muck, you just end up with a big bucket of muck.
@Aidan O: We already have players from the North; Duffy, McLean, O’Kane etc
European championship failure!
Not to worry. We still have John Delaney.
More failure on other international stages.