Smiling in Paris: Lionel Messi
Photo: dpa/Sameer Al-Doumy
“Yes, we are on the way to Paris,” confirmed Jorge Messi on Tuesday afternoon to the questioning journalist at El Prat airport. Antonella Roccuzzo then posted pictures of the flight from Barcelona to the French capital. The destination: Paris St. Germain. While the father and wife shared the news with the football world, the main actor remained silent: Lionel Messi. In the early evening there was still no official confirmation of the rumor. But just the word of Jorge Messi was enough to turn the media world upside down, after all, he is not only the father, but also the manager of the 34-year-old superstar. After a last meeting with a representative of the French club on Monday evening in Ibiza, Jorge Messi is said to have reported an agreement.
Where Lionel Messi was headed was clear since Sunday at the latest, after his last press conference at FC Barcelona. Because hardly any other club than Paris St. Germain can afford the Argentines, especially not in times of Corona. According to media reports, PSG will pay him 40 million euros for a two-year contract – per season, net, plus bonuses!
Lionel Messi will now form the most exciting offensive together with the Brazilian Neymar and the French Kylian Mbappe. The power shift in European football began ten years ago. In 2011, the emirate of Qatar bought the company Qatar Sports Investments near Paris St. Germain; this investor group has long been the sole owner of the club. Since then, well over a billion euros have been spent on transfers alone. In 2017 PSG bought the two most expensive players in the world with Neymar and Mbappe – together for around 400 million euros. In addition, there are lavish salaries and all sorts of other investments. The rules of financial fair play, which compares income and expenditure, are circumvented with a clever system. For example, an advertising contract with the Qatar Tourism Authority brought the club € 200 million a year.
“I want to win the Champions League again,” said Lionel Messi when he left FC Barcelona. The goals of the player and his new club are therefore the same. With this motivation, the President Nasser Al-Khelaifi, appointed by the Qatari emir, justifies the investments again and again. It is no longer a secret that Qatar is cultivating its image with world stars and the glamor of the handle pot. The persistently precarious human rights situation in the emirate has been criticized for years.
None of this was of any interest on Tuesday or in the previous days. Since Sunday, Le Bourget airport has been besieged by hundreds of Parisian fans to celebrate the arrival of the Argentine. The media are rolling, special programs are on television. Messi is slated to be officially presented this Wednesday. It will be a different press conference than the one in Barcelona three days ago. Messi had tearfully said there that he was not ready to leave his club after 21 years. Because Barca, heavily in debt, did not want to pay him 25 million euros a year, he did.
.
