Lionel Messi \ Signs for PSG
- Thread starter Damien
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Its remarkable that huge transfer fees are still a thing post Bosman. I mean, we could lose Pogba for nothing next summer and he cost us £89m. Its like a money burning contest.
You like you buy.
But its the same as anything. Youre buying their services for X amount of years. You don't buy them with the view of selling at an even higher price. Selling them for anything is a bonus.
I don't think Messi's arrival at PSG changes its lacks of competitiveness.
It's just a statistical fact that the EPL is the most competitive. Doesn't mean it's the best.
While I don't think the French league will improve with Messi, although it'll get a lot more attention.
Not sure if Messi will really have significant sporting ambitions in the French league apart.. just the CL.
It's just a statistical fact that the EPL is the most competitive. Doesn't mean it's the best.
While I don't think the French league will improve with Messi, although it'll get a lot more attention.
Not sure if Messi will really have significant sporting ambitions in the French league apart.. just the CL.
They'll dump Icardi without any hesitation if that happens
Fair dos never really paid attention - just looked at the bottom line and cried
What's the difference between social costs and taxes in France? And why not just merge them into one payment?
Yes and part of it is definitely down to poor financial management, but those poor decisions were in-part driven by having to deal with a market which had been artificially inflated by City and your club, PSG, who have what I call 'unnatural' money.
In the market for football players, a footballer is worth what a club is willing and able to pay. It's not like the market for an everyday household good or service where consumers have a plethora of choice, it's more like the market for a more intangible, 'rare' product, like a work of Fine Art.
In a normal situation, the price of the top players would be set by the top clubs, spending 'natural money', i.e. the surplus they have left over from commercial revenue after all of their costs have been deducted. Since the likes of Barcelona, United, Madrid, Bayern etc... all have similar power to earn commercial revenue, they would roughly be able to spend the same amount in the transfer market.
The problem is, City and PSG have entered this market for finite, rare resources with 'unnatural money'. In the case of PSG, they can spend £200m on one player. In the case of City, they hoover up £50m players like a kid collecting football stickers. This puts unnatural pressure on the rest of the market, who are playing by the rules.
Now, what many people DIDN'T understand about the Super League was that, yes, it was about increasing the commercial revenue of the 'historical' big clubs, but it was ALSO just as much about restricting the spending of the oil clubs. By all accounts, the conditions for joining the league meant severe restrictions on what could be spent OUTSIDE of 'natural' commercial revenue. This is why PSG and City were so reluctant to join. It wasn't because they suddenly developed a conscience overnight, it was because it put them in an awkward position. Join and they would have had their spending capped by what commercial revenue they could earn. Don't join and they would have missed out on the massive pot of TV money on offer in the ESL.
I should add, PSG do annoy me because I don't think it's in the best interests of football to have clubs owned by nation states. However, and I don't know if people outside of English football quite appreciate this, City are an even more extreme example because they genuinely aren't even in the top 20 clubs (by size/fanbase/trophies - pre Abu Dhabi) in the country. At least PSG had some History to fall back on.
The problem with this now is that you have Liverpool, Arsenal and United fans, plus the rest of the league, feeling somewhat disenfranchised. Our league title has now been won 5 times from the last 10 by a club who pre-investment were in the 3rd-tier not too long ago. Who wants to see that, apart from the 30,000-odd die-hard Man City fans?
When you bring up this subject, people talk about 'sour grapes' and that completely misses the point. United (my club) haven't been well-run or well-managed for over a decade now, and that's why we haven't been successful, not necessarily solely because of City's money. Nevertheless, when Utd are going through a barren patch, it should be Liverpool, Arsenal or another club coming out of the pack to challenge, not just a club who've had the GDP of a nation-state pumped into them.
IF we don't do something about this, I guarantee the big clubs WILL do something about it. You think Real, Barcelona, Juventus, United, Liverpool etc...will accept they can't compete and just go out with a whimper? I think not. They will already be plotting ESL Pt.2, and if it's not that, it will be something else.
At that point, football will blow-up again with people crying about 'what's fair' and 'what's not fair'...well you can't have your cake and eat it. We EITHER do something to maintain genuine competition and integrity in the game or we don't, and all bets are off. What's not fair is allowing PSG and City to do whatever they like and then crying when the big clubs try to maximise their commercial revenue.
To bring it back to the topic at hand, 500,000,000 Barcelona fans around the World feel angry now, and to be honest, I feel for them too. Messi is 'their' player. By rights, he should have finished is career at Barcelona. To be told by La Liga they can't keep him for financial reasons, whilst City spend £100m on Jack Grealish...it just seems completely perverse.
It works both ways
If Barcelona had been less successful, like a period of 4 years without competing for a trophy, would Messi have stayed?
10 La Liga titles, 4 CL titles, 7x Copa del Rey, 6x Ballon d'Or, highest paid footballer in the world.
Proper fecking sacrifice that
If Barcelona had been less successful, like a period of 4 years without competing for a trophy, would Messi have stayed?
10 La Liga titles, 4 CL titles, 7x Copa del Rey, 6x Ballon d'Or, highest paid footballer in the world.
Proper fecking sacrifice that
That's the way it is, When your employer pays you 1000€, he pays employer costs so it gives you your gross salary, then you pay your social security costs (roughly, it a bit more complicated) for unemployment and retirement costs and it gives you your net, then you pay your income tax by pooling all your revenues and it gives you your net after tax.
Nail this to a church door in Germany.
Messi could have stayed if he accepted €20m per season. There has to be a moment when people admit players, their family members and agents are ridiculously greedy. More money from new rich owners, from new tv deals, from chinese sponsors etc. it doesn't matter when for these guys it's never enough.
Eh, I see the point, but I’ll always be on the side of the individual over the behemoth company, though.
Messi is of course the extreme example but these guys have a shelf life of about 10-12 years. The Barcelona’s will go on and on.
Messi speaking now
Maybe he'd do that if the scrubs below would also agree to be paid half that.... and cut their wages massively too. They didn't.
Good post. The counter to this will always be the line "why should club X, Y and Z always be at the top, why can't a smaller club get investment and compete". The answer to this is that basically its not organic, you take a club with a small fan base and elevate them to the very top and its likely they will always need propping up. Say they are kept up there for 20 years through external money so they gain sufficient 'new fans' to then compete on their own, is that really sporting achievement or integrity? Isn't that just getting a number 1 single by buying 1m copies yourself and calling yourself an artist?
Messi in tears at his goodbye press conference
Itll be interesting to see if he can motivate himself at another club, tbh.
I'm sure if the club meant that much to him and he wanted to stay, surely he would have done the right thing and gone out on a high and on a 'normal' salary. Even 150-200K per week should have been sufficient because come on, does he really need the money? For two more years?
He would have cemented his legacy as super, super godlike status if he'd done it. I'm probably missing key facts out here, but if it's purely down to his salary, I have no sympathy for him.
Ahh yes, a long an illustrious history dating all the way back to 1970 and their founding by a group of thirsty businessmen.
Even the translator is struggling to hold it together.
Actually quite nice in a weird way to finally see some human emotion from him, crying and that. Always comes across as such a dull fella.
Makes it even more tragic he's swapping a club he clearly cares about to go to PSG.
Makes it even more tragic he's swapping a club he clearly cares about to go to PSG.
Yeah I have a bit of an issue with his language there.
Today I have to say goodbye
Not really Leo, you're more than welcome to stay providing you're willing to accept a mere 5m a year to do so
Sad moment. Reminds me of Giggs retirement.
Still wouldn't be able to register him.... and there's a good chance 150-200k wouldn't actually cover his initial outlay for the stream of staff he'd clearly have himself. Forget the rest, it's not like 500k goes in his pocket.
Probably a bit harsh, but feel he can dry his tears with the paper his PSG contract is written on. The one with a lot of zeros.
I was talking with my family about that yesterday...
Surely if he wanted to stay, and loves the club that much, and doesn't want to leave, he could stay and play for next to nothing? He's got all the money he could want, so if he truly loved the club, money wouldn't be an issue?
People forget that even if Messi would accept to play for free, they couldnt sign him, because the overall salary cap is still too high. 95% goes to salaries, even without Messi's. They just cant register Messi. There is even a risk they cant register Aguero and Depay. They still havent registered them because they need to offload players. This isnt about Messi wanting even more money.
They will have to figure things out to registrer Depay or Aguero, they'd have found something for a free Messi.
Imagine the message that he would have sent out if he finished on a nominal contract that ultimately saved his club of 21 years after all they had forked out on him.
As I said, if the issue was purely about costs, whatever they may be, Leo Messi could have sucked it up for two years.
How is Depay and Aguero playing for them then?
No.... He isnt registered by the club, and cant be registered, because there isnt enough money. Even if he played for free, he cant be registered.
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