The massive transfer rocked the football world this week, as one of the greatest players of all time joined the Parisian juggernaut.
Rumours started to spread around about Messi’s switch to the French capital as early as last Friday, after the official announcement from FC Barcelona came out about their inability of renewing Leo Messi’s contract. It is being reported that the issue of the renewing was with Messi’s salary, which made it impossible to stay below the club’s wage limit according to the financial fair play (FFP) rules. Messi was actually ready to go as low as possible with his new wages, but La Liga’s rules does not allow a football player cutting his wages more than by 50% if he competed in the previous season. Multiple reports suggest that even cutting his wages by exactly the allowed 50% would still have made it over FC Barcelona’s yearly wage limit by 10 Million Euros. At the end, poor management was the reason for this unbelievable move.
Lionel Messi signed a contract with the Parisians until 2023, with a possible 1 year addition. His yearly salary will be 25 Million Euros, which can go up to 35 Million Euros with bonus payments. In PSG’s press conference on Wednesday, Messi said “I am excited as a child to play with the best players in the world alongside me” and added “my welcome here was really nice”. Leo choose the number 30 as his new jersey number, and will form probably the most fearful attacking trio in football world with Neymar Jr. and Kylian Mbappé. Messi becomes PSG’s 6th signing of this summer transfer window, with Gianluigi Donnarumma, Wijnaldum, Sergio Ramos, Danilo Pereira and Achraf Hakimi already signing with the club. What is most interesting about all of these signings is that only two players (Danilo Pereira and Achraf Hakimi) were bought from other clubs. All other players came to Paris for free.
Lionel Messi’s first game in the blue jersey is wildly anticipated by the world as he is planned for the squad to face Strasbourg on Saturday at 20:45 PM CET in the Ligue 1. By signing his new contract, Messi also added some extra clauses. One of them is the ability to travel back to the city of Barcelona any time he likes (which is similar to Nexmar’s clause that enables him to go back to Brasil anytime he wishes), and another one allows him to work further with his previous crew of doctors and health specialists. The world is watching while he will represent PSG for the first time soon. Maybe this will be PSG’s year to win everything they hoped for in the past, including the elusive Champions League title.