Lionel Messi will not be a Barcelona player next season. That’s a sentence that was written by many journalists in many places last season when he tried to void his contract with the Catalan giants, but this time it’s true. Even though both the club and the player wanted to renew his contract and keep him at the team he’s played for since he was a teenager, it’s not going to happen. La Liga has refused to sanction the deal because of Barcelona’s financial woes, and Messi is officially a free agent. At the age of 34, he’s looking for a new club. The football world is in shock.
Last year, Messi desperately wanted to get out. This year, it looks like he desperately wanted to stay. He was even prepared to take a 50% pay cut to make the deal happen, but even that didn’t satisfy La Liga’s officials. They’re not happy that Barcelona can balance the books, and they don’t have enough room in their salary structure. It was widely reported several months ago that they’d have to sell players to fund the new contract, but they haven’t been able to do so. French striker Antoine Griezmann was put up for sale in an attempt to raise the necessary capital, but Barcelona couldn’t convince Manchester United to buy him. Nobody else stepped forward. Because of that – and because of years of apparent financial mismanagement at the club – the Messi era is over the man and his beloved team.
If this had happened a year ago, Messi would probably be on his way to the English Premier League with Manchester City already. He has a strong personal relationship with City manager Pep Guardiola from their time together at Barcelona, and it’s no secret that the club wanted him. At one stage last summer, they genuinely thought they were going to get him, but then Barcelona dug their heels in, and Messi had to abandon his escape plan. This year, things are different. City has just spent £100m on Jack Grealish. They might well spend another £100m or more on Harry Kane. They can’t afford to stretch their finances any further to bring in Messi even if there’s no transfer fee involved. If the Kane deal falls through there might still be a chance, but the smart money says the England striker will turn out for the Citizens next year. Even two months ago, there might have been a chance for Messi and City, but now it seems too late.
If Manchester City isn’t an option, it seems there’s only one place Messi can go. One or two other Premier League clubs – Manchester United and perhaps Chelsea – would be able to afford Messi, but there’s never been any suggestion he’d be interested in going there. At the age of 34, he might not want to risk playing in the Premier League and looking like a player who’s past his best anyway. There’s no chance he’d play for another club in Spain even if any of them could afford him, and there isn’t a club in Italy that has the cash to bring him in. That leaves Paris Saint Germain in France. The French league is undeniably a step down from the English, Spanish, and Italian leagues in terms of quality, but PSG has big money and an all-star lineup. A move to Paris offers him the chance to renew his on-field relationship with Brazilian striker Neymar and also to play alongside Kylian Mbappe. The move is there for him, and he’ll probably take it.
Even now, though, there might be another twist in this tale. Barcelona fans are in denial and disbelief about this unexpected development, but some of them believe that Barcelona is grandstanding. The presence of Messi is valuable not only to the club he plays for but the competition he plays in. By releasing a statement that places the blame on La Liga for refusing to sanction the deal, Barcelona is heaping pressure on the league and its officials. If Messi leaves Spain, it’s now La Liga’s fault in the eyes of millions of fans. That might prompt La Liga to look at the deal again and reconsider whether they can sign it off or not. Backing down now would be humiliating, but the consequences of allowing Messi to leave free of charge might be worse.
For Barcelona, this has been a painful lesson in economics. The club has spent beyond its means for decades and is now counting the cost. Like Real Madrid, they’re said to be hundreds of millions of Euros in debt. They spend colossal amounts on new players every season in the hope that they’ll win La Liga and the Champions League to balance the books. The gamble doesn’t always pay off, and neither does treating a football club like an online slots website. Many of us know the feeling of putting increasing amounts of money into an online slots game without seeing anything coming back out in return. For some – those who don’t know when to stop – they spend more money playing online slots than they can afford to lose. That point has now come for Barcelona. If you place irresponsible bets at Online Slots UK, the website will stop in and try to prevent you from making the problem any worse. This is La Liga’s equivalent of doing the same thing. They’ve stood back and watched Barcelona spend like it’s going out of fashion for years. Now they’ve decided that it would be irresponsible to let them carry on.
This probably wouldn’t have happened if the European Super League proposal had gone ahead as planned last April. It also probably wouldn’t have happened if Manchester United or somebody else had agreed to pay big money for Antoine Griezmann. That doesn’t matter. The fact is that it has happened, and unless there’s yet another dramatic twist in this tale, Lionel Messi will be playing for somebody else next season. It’s going to be strange to see him in someone else’s shirt, just as it will be strange to see Barcelona line up without him. All good things eventually come to an end – but nobody thought the story of Messi and Barcelona would end like this.