Ever since the Catalan football club, Barcelona confirmed that their talismanic player, Lionel Messi will be leaving the club after nearly two decades, it wasn’t a surprise to see the Argentine as the top trend across social media platforms. With a total of 242 million users on Instagram alone, it would have been foolish to think of anything else as the biggest talking point on social media other than his exit. (More Football News)
But amidst all the emotion and the public display of love from the club for their player, who undoubtedly made Barcelona an even more popular club during his time, there’s a growing sense of disbelief that the football club is possibly trying to put pressure on La Liga to get away from their wage structure.
Top Spanish journalist and analyst, Guillem Balague tweeted, “Are you sure there are no more twists to the story?”
According to the club statement, released on Thursday (August 5), the contract cannot be renewed “because of Spanish LaLiga regulations on player registration.”
A law passed in 2013 saw a cap on the players’ salaries in the league and also prevented clubs from buying players for anything more than 70 percent of its annual revenues.
According to a report in the Guardian, the club is under debt for 1173 million Euros, and player salaries account for 110 percent of their income. Last month it was reported that Messi had, at least in principle, agreed on a five-year deal with the club, accepting a 50 percent wage cut, from 45 million euros to 20 million euros, after tax.
A few months back, it was also reported that Barcelona had to let go of 200 million USD in salaries to be able to renew this contract with Messi. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and no business in the market meant Barcelona could not achieve their target and as a result, the club Thursday announced that the Argentina captain would be making an exit.
Shortly afterward, the club released another statement in which they rejected the private equity investment into La Liga by CVC on Wednesday, a day after it was confirmed that the 3.2 billion USD with the private equity firm will give them 10 percent of the revenue from the league along with a stake of 10 percent.
This move has surprised many in the world of European football, who saw the deal as the only thing that would probably help the club to renew their contract with Messi since, the amount of money from the deal to be shared among La Liga outfits, Barca are reportedly owed 320 million USD - 15% of which can be made on player signings.
Interestingly, Real Madrid, another club that has had to make changes to adjust to the wage structure of La Liga has rejected the deal, which will soon be voted for by the 42 teams in the top two football divisions of Spain.
Not too long ago, these two clubs were instrumental in orchestrating a break-away league, ‘Euro Super League (ESL)’, which would have seen these clubs receive a massive pay out of USD 3.5 billion, thus eventually enabling these giants to get around the league’s wage structure clause; and in Messi’s case, helped the FCB renew his contract.
Ever since the idea of ESL fell through, Barca and Real Madrid have been left to lick their wounds, proverbially speaking, and are almost forced to get their affairs, that is the player salaries, in order.
With Manchester City announcing Jack Grealish signing, and Harry Kane on the way to the blue-half of Manchester, it looks more likely that Messi is heading to Paris. Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), who as experts in Europe also point out, are probably the only club who can afford the multiple Ballon d’Or winner.
However, the French club are also alert and several reports in France suggest that they want to sign Messi quickly before La Liga allows Barcelona to get away from their current wage structure.
With these things in context, it does look like, Messi’s exit is anything but far from complete.
The footballer himself hasn’t made any post announcing his exit from the club, which is the usual trend, once the club announces that a player is moving to another club.
Given the massive popularity, and the fact that he is (arguably) the best player in the world right now, Messi’s exit will not just be a big loss for the club, but for La Liga as well. And many feel that the league might just make amendments to their 2013 ruling, allowing Messi to stay at the club.
