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Manchester City reportedly wants to pay Lionel Messi € 500 million. Part of the build should be two seasons at the partner club in the US.
Lionel Messi could gild the end of his career.
Photo: Jasper Juinen / Getty Images
Even after the support of the Spanish league association LFP, FC Barcelona must prepare for a future without Lionel Messi, according to a prominent sports lawyer. In a telephone interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Rafael Alonso said that the LFP was unable to prevent Messi’s transfer to a non-Spanish club.
The LFP said this Sunday after reviewing Messi’s contract that the six-time world footballer would have to deposit the contractually stipulated transfer fee of 700 million euros if he wanted to leave Barcelona; Otherwise, you would not agree to move abroad. Alonso said the LFP lacks the competence to do this. Because the world football federation FIFA could very well grant Messi a provisional license to play, for example for England, where Manchester City is waving a lot of money.
Messi was also absent from training on Tuesday
Like the Barcelona Sport newspaper reported Monday that FC Barcelona has yet to receive an official offer for Messi. In addition to City, Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan and Juventus Turin are associated with the Argentine. Messi’s decision to leave Barcelona is considered irrevocable. The 33-year-old supported this by staying away from the corona test. Therefore, he had to stay away from first-team training of the new season with fellow new coach Ronald Koeman on Monday afternoon. Messi was not training on Tuesday either.
Sport reported that City lured the 33-year-old with a construction that could generate revenue of around 500 million euros over the next five years. For comparison: the most expensive work of art in history, “Salvator mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci, was auctioned by Christie’s auction house for 450.3 million dollars in 2017; it is now supposedly owned by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of the Saudi royal family.
The most expensive work of art in history, “Salvator mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci.
Three years after Manchester, then two years after New York?
The owners of the city are not Saudis, but economically well-off sheiks from the United Arab Emirates. According to sport Split City’s offer to Messi in two halves: first he will play for three years in Manchester, then two years for the American affiliate of the Premier League club, FC New York City. Additionally, City Messi’s current net annual salary of € 50 million guarantees a total of € 250 million. If it turns out that Messi can leave Barça for free, City would also pay him 250 million euros in hand, according to the newspaper. Only after moving to the US, though, is the catch: City could avoid another conflict with the European soccer federation Uefa’s financial fair play rules.
According to sports lawyer Alonso, Messi has a good chance of leaving Barcelona at least at a relatively moderate price. According to the wording of his contract, which ends in 2021, Messi would have had to declare in writing before June 10 that he wanted to leave Barcelona to avoid the 700 million clause. “Due to the special situation of Covid, the decision can be exported to August, that is, to the days after the end of the extended season,” says Alonso.
Because in June Messi still had no basis for a decision. “I didn’t know, for example, which coach would be in charge and which players would come,” Alonso said. Beyond that, he could have behaved in a detrimental way to business had he announced his departure in June. The vortex would have endangered Barcelona’s goals for the season in the Spanish league and the Champions League. They too were missed. Barça has the first season without a title to play since 2007/2008.
“Barely 700 million euros are owed”
Alonso is cautious on the question of whether a new club could be forced to pay a transfer fee as a result of a legal dispute. That also depends on where the dispute takes place. If the FIFA arbitration court is called and a compensation payment is claimed in favor of Barcelona, several parameters would be used: Messi’s age, the remaining term of his contract (one season), his earnings and costs. to get a comparable replacement.
“Of course, that represents a risk for the receiving club,” says Alonso. However, due to the precedents, he considers it unlikely that 700 million euros will be owed. The lawyer remembers the case of Iban Zubiaurre; His move from Real Sociedad San Sebastián to Athlétic Bilbao ended on a Spanish court 15 years ago. The fixed transfer fee of € 30 million was declared disproportionate and reduced to € 5 million. But: “Barcelona also has the risk of Messi leaving for free at the end.”
Lionel Messi has finished with Barcelona.
Photo: Juanjo Martin / Keystone
Therefore, Alonso believes it is conceivable that the club will enter into negotiations soon. This is already being debated in Barcelona, but for image reasons, the transfer fee would have to be higher than the 222 million euros that the Brazilian Neymar contributed when he moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2017 Because Messi is considered the best player in the world, so he is more valuable than Neymar. According to media reports, Jorge Messi, father and coach of the professional, plans to travel this week from Rosario / Argentina to Barcelona to meet with the president of Barça, Josep Bartomeu. So far this has ruled out negotiations.
Meanwhile, the details emerge from the interview Ronald Koeman had with Messi on August 21. Radio station RAC1 said Messi was surprised not by the new manager’s announcement that he wanted to rule with a heavy hand, but because Koeman had told him that he wanted to build a team around him, Messi. Messi then said in a small circle that he could help, but not be the central figure in a rebuild. He is already 33 years old.
