Basically he couldn't get out of his contract without paying £700m. So the club chuck him another £1m a week and keep him happy for another year under a coach he'll hate and a substandard squad that he'll spend the season looking on forlornly at as they concede another goal.
Twitter suggesting he might decide to stay - making some announcement later this evening. Maybe for a season then leave on a free meaning Barca get nothing.
It's not really staying is it? It's clear he won't be giving the same effort (and it seems he wanted to leave all season) and is essentially a footballing prisoner. They've made a laughable managerial appointment and have released his best friend before the end of his contract. Doesn't bode well for them. After all he's done for the club, it's quite shocking that he hasn't been allowed to leave.
I think he'll leave reading the full interview: “I told the club, including the president, that I wanted to go. I've been telling him that all year. I believed it was time to step aside,” Messi told Goal. “I believed that the club needed more young players, new players and I thought my time in Barcelona was over. I felt very sorry because I always said that I wanted to finish my career here. “It was a very difficult year, I suffered a lot in training, in games and in the dressing room. Everything became very difficult for me and there came a time when I considered looking for new ambitions. “It did not come because of the Champions League result against Bayern, no – I had been thinking about the decision for a long time. “I told the president and, well, the president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I wanted to go or if I wanted to stay and in the end he did not keep his word.”
Pity. He would have destabilised Man City. At Barca everyone has always been told that it all revolves around him, but would the Man City players, who've achieved a lot without him, have taken that? And how would De Bruyne, Sterling, Aguero et al have taken to Messi earning so much more than them?
That move has probably been done countless times in training. It is no different to a "set piece" coming off. Absolutely amazing ability to pull it off none the less
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/55882674 The contract (the details of which were leaked) is rather obscene none the less.
Messi stays at Barcelona on a reduced contract. By the time he finishes his career he will be a billionaire. Perhaps he may invest in Newell's Old Boys and turn them into a force to be reckoned with again in Argentina and South America. A hugely impressive Copa despite a hamstring strain hampering him in the semifinal and final. Looks to have become a real leader as well, comforting and cajoling and belting out Oid mortales with gusto. Now he has one target left. Qatar. When he cried at the final whistle the pressure on him visibly lifted and I have to say I cried a little too. If he was not already adored by the public in Argentina and across wide swathes of the globe he is even more adored.
I see the coward is taking the piss out of the fans again. Ohhh I'm really leaving this time! (until the league allow to be keep receiving my obscene wages that is). Just ***** LOL at that ugly terd, the wretched club and its inadequate fans.
Was so desperate not to leave his comfort zone that he was happy to bleed Barcelona dry on an absolutely ridiculous five year contract for a 34 year old, knowing the financial mess they're in and how detrimental it would almost certainly be to the club, and now that's collapsed he's simply followed the money to PSG and the fifth best league in Europe. He's still arguably the GOAT but he's a complete coward.
Pulls the heart strings to see Messi crying at the press conference on the way to signing his million euro a week contract with PSG.
I know we talk about the impact of ‘normal’ footballers having their wages halved from say £50K a week to £25k per week, and that even though it’s a lot of money it would still impact their lives. Players like Messi are operating so far beyond the levels of income that anyone could possibly ever need that the whole things is absolutely absurd.
Lovely that Barca have been looking to flog all their other high earners so they could afford to keep him.
I’ve heard loads of people say ‘well if he wanted to stay at Barca he should take a pay cut to make it happen’. That is absolute tosh. Barca won’t give a **** about Messi when his career is over and he is earning £0. His sponsorship deals will expire because he is not playing anymore and unless he has other ventures outside of football or takes on coaching/managing his football income will be nothing. Footballers have very short working careers and people always forget that
We're talking about the most talented human being to ever kick a ball here. Something tells me he won't go hungry, and could've sacrificed a year or two's earnings and still had enough petrol to make training.
Absolutely agree, but don’t cry for the camera when the most important consideration is to keep the million a week rolling in rather than 300k a week.
Considering he demanded to leave last season, it was pretty hilarious to see him so upset about leaving now. Play for free if he bloody loves the place so much. The man's a billionaire.
Barcelona legends are revered after their careers are over. Most of them stay involved in the club in some way. To suggest that they won't care about him when he's retired shows a complete lack of education about the Spanish game, the club and region in which it sits. If he played for free, I'm sure a new sponsor would have stepped in to pay him and he'd have risen to sainthood so highly within Catalonia, they'd have probably renamed the region after him.
It is a short career but he can go off and do another job when he finishes playing like most footballers have to. If he never earnt another penny he will still be incredibly wealthy
He couldn't have even played for free as he became unregistered and they can only register players when wage-to-turnover is 70%. Currently stands at 95%, so I don't know how the likes of Aguero will be registered either.
