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Messi’s PSG deal shows the gulf is widening between football’s super-rich and the rest

Messi’s PSG deal shows the gulf is widening between football’s super-rich and the rest
Argentinian striker Lionel Messi poses with his new PSG jersey after his press conference as part of his official presentation at the Parc des Princes stadium, in Paris, France, on 11 August 2021. (Photo: EPA-EFE / CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON)

Lionel Messi’s move from Barcelona Football Club, the only home he has known as a player, to Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) underlines that money trumps loyalty every time.

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper. 

It’s no surprise that Messi, the world’s greatest footballer, left the club he was so loyal to when the crunch came over money. Barcelona, a team defined in the modern era by Messi’s exploits, could no longer afford to pay him the amounts he was accustomed to earning. And Messi wasn’t sticking around to take a pay cut.

In the end, after 72 tumultuous hours in which lawyers, owners, agents and managers haggled, Messi emerged at the Parc des Princes in Paris as a PSG player.

That Barcelona, cash-strapped and in a financial tailspin, could not afford to hang on to the one player who might save them from further economic misery, underlines that, in the end, football might actually eat itself.

Barcelona have spent lavishly for decades but the pinch, worsened by Covid-19, has left the powerful club vulnerable. As a consequence, it has had to sell off its prized asset at below market value.

PSG, owned by a seemingly bottomless money well of Qatari money, had no problem coming up with Messi’s reported annual net wages of €35-million (his gross salary is reported to be €63-million) as well as a signing-on fee of about €25-million. Messi’s addition to the roster will bring the club’s wage bill close to the €500-million mark annually. It might well exceed the club’s turnover.

Messi was offered a two-year contract with a further one-year option and has been recruited to win the one title that has eluded PSG – the Champions League.

Messi’s price tag is a drop in the ocean for PSG, though, and within hours of his unveiling as their player, the 34-year-old Argentine started recouping the club’s money. According to activity tracker Talkwalker, from the evening of 6 August to the evening of 10 August, PSG gained three million new followers, including 2.1 million on Instagram and 611,000 on Facebook.

An estimate by Front Office Sports on 11 August showed a 4.5 million increase on Instagram alone over 24 hours.

In comments this year, FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta credited Messi for roughly a third of the club’s income. Consultants BrandFinance estimated his departure could decrease Barça’s brand value by 11%.

Vincent Chaudel, a co-founder of sports business think-tank Observatoire du Sport-Business, estimated Messi’s arrival could boost PSG’s value by 10% to 20%. In April, Forbes valued the club at $2.5-billion.

Since Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) first bought a majority stake in PSG in 2011, they have spent large amounts of money seeking domestic dominance and European success.

Messi’s arrival brings a sense that the coming season is crunch time. Having already signed the likes of Italian goalkeeper (and Euro 2020 winner) Gianluigi Donnarumma from AC Milan, and former Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos, anything short of lifting the Champions League trophy next May will widely be considered a failure.

If they do manage to win it, the symbolism will be striking. Just five months later, the small Gulf state will host the 2022 Fifa World Cup.

It would be quite a year for Qatar and its investments in football, which will be seen as a big win off the pitch as well as on it.

Since 1971, when Qatar ceased to be a British protectorate, the country’s ruling family has been working out how best to use its wealth of natural resources. Faced with the need to diversify its economy away from a dependence on gas and oil, in 2008 the country launched its 2030 national vision.

The aim was to “transform Qatar into an advanced society capable of achieving sustainable development”. This gave rise to a development strategy of which sport and football are important elements.

Staging the World Cup is as much about promoting infrastructural development and long-term tourism as it is a four-week tournament. Acquiring PSG also became part of the plan – it makes money and extends Qatari influence across the world.

PSG, with its multitude of stars, including Brazilian Neymar and French superstar Kylian Mbappé, are certainly going to struggle to stay under the threshold of UEFA’s financial fair play (FFP) rules.

QSI’s chairman and PSG’s president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, is also chairman of the European Club’s Association, giving him a place on UEFA’s Executive Council.

He knows how to navigate a world of crunching tackles, most notably in ensuring that PSG remains onside with UEFA’s rules. He’s also a man who stood by UEFA during the attempted Super League breakaway, refusing to ally PSG with its European rivals.

UEFA’s FFP rules are designed to prevent clubs spending more than they earn. “We’re always attentive to FFP. It’s the first thing we check with the commercial, financial and legal people before signing someone,” Al-Khelaifi told a news conference this week.

The other reason the clubs are finding a way around FFP is that the rules have changed under the pandemic. In the past, clubs were allowed maximum losses of €30-million over a three-year period.

UEFA has amended the rules so that pandemic losses are not considered under FFP and so that owners can inject capital into a club to cover any losses.

That, of course, is a benefit to clubs such as PSG and Manchester City, which are owned by obscenely wealthy individuals or entities. And why they were able to add a player of Messi’s calibre to an already stacked playing roster.  DM168/ Reuters

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for R25 at Pick n Pay, Exclusive Books and airport bookstores. For your nearest stockist, please click here.

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