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Six days after Lionel Messi told Barcelona he wanted to leave, the exit process is bogged down in lawsuits and counterclaims.
Yesterday, La Liga announced that Messi’s contract is still valid and can only be terminated if someone pays the 700 million euro release clause. Of course, La Liga is clearly not a disinterested party. If Messi leaves, the remaining big stars in the Spanish league will be Sergio Ramos, a central defender, and Diego Simeone, 50 years old in a suit.
Messi, for his part, seems to believe that he is already a free agent, due to another secret contractual clause that, according to Onda Cero radio, gives him the right to terminate his contract before the start of the 2020-21 season.
One thing we know for sure is that if the best player in history leaves Barcelona in a free signing, when everyone believed he was under contract for at least one more year, it will be a debacle of unthinkable proportions for the president. Josep Bartomeu. His name will live in infamy as an international synonym for executive incompetence. Bartomeu will fight to avoid this outcome by all means necessary.
What does Bartomeu really want? The ideal outcome for him would be to replicate what happened when Cristiano Ronaldo left Real Madrid: He could accept a nine-figure transfer fee, take the superstar’s salary off the books, and make it seem like all of this is happening against his. Will.
The pandemic has opened a hole in Barcelona’s finances and selling Messi would reduce the salary bill by 20 percent at a stroke. Remember that Football Leaks revealed that Barcelona were paying Messi € 106 million guaranteed per year, once registration fees and loyalty payments were taken into account.
It is the largest club in the world by turnover, with revenues in 2019 of 840 million euros. Some 383 million euros come from commercial income and much of that is due to Messi. If you want to understand why Messi is so attractive to sponsors, consider that just a week ago you had never heard of a Burofax. When you look at the sums involved, Messi’s € 106 million compensation actually seems proportional to his contribution.
That doesn’t mean that commercial magic can be instantly recreated elsewhere. Juventus thought signing Ronaldo would transform their business prospects, but it hasn’t happened yet. Yes, Ronaldo’s first season saw his revenue increase by € 65 million, including a € 43 million increase in business revenue. Still, his total business income was just € 160 million, less than half that of Ronaldo’s former club Real Madrid. And given that Ronaldo is costing € 85 million per season over the four years of his contract, it’s hard to argue that the deal has been an unreserved commercial success.
Signing a 33-year-old Messi at these rates might only make sense for a club for which money is not an issue. A club like. . . Manchester City fresh from victory over UEFA FFP enforcers at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
State
The Messi operation would not be about business. It would be about status: this is where the best player in the world has chosen to play.
In fact, City have been the richest club in the world since the acquisition of Abu Dhabi in 2008, but status takes longer to grow. In 2009, they were willing to pay Milan £ 100 million for Kaka, but the player turned them down. Then-CEO Garry Cook recently told Sky Sports that he later met Kaka at Robinho’s wedding. “I asked him why he didn’t come. He said, ‘I was at AC Milan and I had an offer from Manchester City, what would you do?’ and he was right. ”Kaka would never make the same mistake again.
It still seems hard to believe that Messi is about to be uprooted from the club and the city where he has spent 20 years, to head north into the darkness, cold and isolation of a Manchester pandemic winter, to take his chances in the Premier League. . at 33 years old.
There are really two questions here: the “Why leave?” and the question “Why city?” question.
Messi leaves out of anger: anger at Bartomeu and the directors, anger at how they have treated his friends, anger at how they blame him for the failures of the club. Anger is not the best reason to make a decision like this, but it is reason enough to do so, as long as it doesn’t cool down before action is taken.
Guardiola
And why City? Three reasons: money, strong teammates and Guardiola. It’s not because she loves him. You may not even like it. The appeal of working with Guardiola is not the opportunity for an emotional reunion. Is that if there is any coach who can devise a system to maximize Messi’s strengths while covering his weaknesses, surely it is Guardiola.
Messi remains excellent in all aspects of football except running. Its slowness does not mean that it cannot remain effective, even at the highest rates of English football.
It’s about how the team is organized around you. The people who run Barcelona don’t act like they understand. Messi knows that Guardiola understands it.
When he was young, Guardiola himself could barely run, he considered himself a bad defender and feared he did not have what it took to play as a defensive midfielder for Barcelona. Johan Cruyff reassured him: “Defending is a question of: how much space should I defend. If I have to defend this whole garden, I am the worst. If I have to defend this small area, I am the best.
He showed Guardiola that he could compensate for his lack of rhythm by positioning himself correctly in relation to his teammates. The system would take care of the rest.
Marriages of convenience can be underestimated. By the end of Guardiola’s time in Barcelona, his relationship with Messi had cooled. But since then, Messi has had a series of cold relationships with the coaches. And none of them were as good at putting together the team as Guardiola.
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