And just like that, he’s gone. As the press release stated: “Despite FC Barcelona and Lionel Messi having reached an agreement and the clear intention of both parties to sign a new contract today, this cannot happen because of financial and structural obstacles (Spanish Liga regulations).” Financial and structural obstacles! Let’s talk about this. I’ll be in the thread answering as many questions as I can over the next hour. Ask whatever you want.
All right -- got to as many as I could. Need to write something about this now. Sorry I couldn't answer all of the questions. Thanks so much for hopping in here, all!
Am I insane to think there's still a 75% chance he stays at Barca? ESPN and venture capitalists just dumped a ton of money into this league and part of me thinks it's just a scam to get La Liga to bend the salary cap rules for Barca this year
I wouldn't say it's 75 percent, but yes a part of me finds it hard to believe that Barcelona and Messi didn't understand -- or even know about the existence of? -- the La Liga salary cap until like four weeks ago. The statement makes it sound like they offered Messi a new deal as if there we no salary cap rules, he accepted, and then they realized that there were salary cap rules. Could that be that dense? I don't know. I'll say there's like a 1-in-10 chance he stays at the club.
LOL if he goes to PSG and I remember PSG are also linked with Ronaldo not too long ago, could you imagine the wages? Like a billion per year between the 2 of them
The more information comes out about this thing, the more it suggests (IMO) that this is bargaining tactic from Barca to rejuvenate the Super League project, which they view as the only plausible way out of their financial straits.
I'm fascinated to see how Barca looks without Messi. It could be an absolute disaster -- the team was built around him doing literally everything in attack -- but they also do still have a lot of good players, both late prime guys that never got going in the Messi-centric system and a bunch of really promising youngsters who are already good enough to start for a top team. I don't see them dropping out of the top four, mainly because I don't trust the Sevillas/Villarrealls/Sociedads of the world.
Not the end his Barca career deserved. Do Barca now fade as a European superpower? Still a lot of wages to shift to even maintain the balance at this point and they will have significantly less player pulling power.
It's a great question. There are still a bunch of good young players at the club, but the club is a complete mess and why would anyone trust them to suddenly turn things around. Messi has held them up for the last five years. Throw in PSG and the increasing financial power of the Premier League and Bayern just having a monopoly on one of the best talent-producing nations in world soccer, I think we'll Barca slip to where they were in the late 90s and early 2000s -- one of the better teams in Spain, not a true threat in Europe.
Would it *really* surprise you that after Messi's tax problems and Barcelona's general financial idiocy that neither of them knew about the cap until today? I believe that
1) Barca and Messi are playing a game of chicken, using the statement to force La Liga to reckon with a post-Messi future and then scale back their cap rules after they vacate their bowels.
2) Barca and Messi are used to not abiding by any financial constraints and were caught off guard by the concept of a financial constraint.
My New Jersey scumbag senses are telling me Messi and/or Barca saw the influx of cash from that private equity group, who probably invested that much (3 Billion) with the expectation that Messi would be in the league. Messi and Barca are trying to force the group into threatening to withdraw the investment unless La Liga changes the cap rules so that Messi can get paid.
How significant is the financial impact of Messi leaving going to be, considering by far and away their most marketable player, as well as being responsible for like 30% of their revenue?
Probably equally as high as PSG’s? They’ve been trying to snag lukaku from inter for like €130m so its not like they can’t afford him or aren’t looking for an attacker
The irony of this happening the day after Pep says they're not buying a striker would be so thick you could drizzle it over your pancakes in the morning.
I don't really understand why Barca hasn't shown any urgency in selling their players people actually want to buy. Like, if you're truly at risk of losing Messi don't just constantly try to find takers for toxic assets like Griezmann and Coutinho. Put a blue chipper like Frankie/Pedri/Fati on the block and try and actually fix this thing, yeah? Or is their financial situation so far gone that that wouldn't even make a dent?
Bingo. They don't seem to be willing to accept any pain. They just want all of the players they don't care about to get scooped up for magical sums of money that will save the club.
is there a good article that explains what exactly happened? someone texted me there's a salary cap in Spain... wut? how could that even get passed when all La Liga does is help RM and Barca
If both sides truly wanted it, is there anything preventing messi from playing this ssn on minimum wage and then back loading contract? A more extreme version of what he already agreed to with the 5 year deal
Assuming Messi does, in fact, leave, which still seems somewhat hard to believe, what does this mean for the future of non-EPL/PSG teams? Seems more and more there’s a small group of teams that basically print money at this point while everyone else struggles to keep up. Is there a way for the Serie A/La Liga/Bundesliga to catch up to the EPL from a money-making perspective or are we heading for a future where the only option for most clubs, even big ones, is “spend smarter”?
Yeah, but this was true whether or not Messi stayed. The weirdest thing about the Super League, to me, was how ready EPL teams were to join in. The Super League already exists; it's the Premier League. I do think other leagues/clubs can catch up, but they need to be way more innovative. The 38-game home-and-away structure kinda stinks in these other leagues, where the same teams almost always win. Why not steer into the randomness a bit and try to make the games more exciting? Just doing your version of the Premier League isn't gonna help you catch the Premier League. I also don't know why a league hasn't been more aggressive about publishing advanced stats and making video widely available like the NBA does. The PL sucks at both of those things and pushing those areas seems like another way to gain a new following.
Is this not the Bundesliga? With fewer teams/games, the largest fan attendance on the continent, partnering with AWS, ESPN+, DAZN, free live games on national TV, and quick succinct highlight reels published shortly after games. Bayern has dominated the league, but it also has the most amount of members of all the clubs in the league (a decent measure of how much support each club has in the country)
I don't really understand FFP, whether it exists, or what the punishments are, but wouldn't it be worth it to sign Messi even if you had to secure loans to sign him and possibly be banned from Europe after this season to win your domestic league and the Champions League this season? Would any teams try this?
I think this summer is gonna be a free-for-all re: FFP. UEFA themselves said it's currently "purposeless", so I think clubs, if they want, will be able to spend a ton of money this summer and not get punished. FFP is retroactively assessed, unlike the La Liga salary cap, which is forward looking. Should that CVC firm pull out from La Liga and help Burnley buy Messi? Absolutely.
Given their constraints, are Barcelona even able to register their other free transfers, Aguero, Depay, Garcia without moving/re-working other big salaries?
Can you please explain / ask someone how la liga can just implement a hard cap without any notice over the summer? Seems completely insane to me that barca has to cut 70% of wages when they got funding so have no immediate cash flow issues. Surely belt tightening should be a long term process. Not a summer one?
The cap has been there for years. It's based partially on club profits so because Barca have been spending above their means for so long combined with COVID effect they are in big trouble.
Think the idea is sailors can only spend infrequently, with them being mostly out at sea where there aren't any vendors, so they go hard when they're in port.
Basically the exact same as clubs during transfer windows.
Not to lose touch with the thread at hand but I believe the metaphor is "swore like a drunken sailor". In which case this is what I'd be doing if I was Harry Kane right about now.
So La Liga clearly has actual teeth here...Is thinking of this as sort of an NBA Hard Cap the best comparison? Also I can't believe Barca couldn't have planned this poorly right? Was any of this a surprise?
Sort of -- it's dependent on team revenue, so the cap is different for every team. And I think the pandemic just totally fucked their projections. Terrible squad management can survive when you're breaking 1 bil in revenue in a year, and so the team was built with infinite growth as a constant. That being said, it really seems like they only realized these issues a month or two ago -- and it should've been clear, at the club, for a long time now. I guess they also might've been hoping for some leniency from La Liga b/c of the pandemic, but that hasn't really happened.
Who can afford him? Where does this leave Barcelona in terms of their attack and the registration of their new players? Is that possible now? Do they still need to shed more money? It's my understanding they do need to get rid of more dead weight, but I just want confirmation.
Answered the first one a couple times already. I really wish the reporting and the rules on the registration/cap stuff was clearer; I can't give you a concrete answer unfortunately. They can afford a wage bill in the Aston Villa range, per the Athletic, so I think they still need to shed some salary to register all of the guys they've signed.
Actually leaving, or just can't sign the contract they agreed to? Because they could always agree to a different new contract, right? Really depends on how much Messi wants to stay vs how much Messi wants gobs of money?
The statement says "not staying at Barcelona". Yes, Messi could play for like 100 grand a year, but among elite players in their sports, only Tom Brady, whose wife is one fo the richest women on planet earth who doesn't own a Fortune 500 company, has taken a truly sizable pay-cut to stay with a team/help a team win. Don't really think this comes down to Messi being greedy.
Depends on whether it's been finalized or not. We haven't seen the news confirming it, but it seemed like everything was really close. Then again, clubs have done crazier and shittier things to players.
I see that "COYS" in your bio. I think Kane staying at Tottenham would've been the most likely outcome even without Messi hitting the market. If City gets Messi, then yes, it's unlikely they also get Kane. But if Messi goes to PSG, I can easily see City feeling like they need to spend big again, in addition to Grealish.
Do you think this is a Messi decision (the club are a dumpster fire and he'd be better served elsewhere), a Barca decision (they literally cannot afford to pay him) or a bit of both?
is it not the ultimate indictment of capitalism ruining the world's game that the most talented player has essentially had to wait for a global catastrophe to affect the economy in order for him to move clubs (I'm reaching, just nice to chat, Ryan)
yes, and also barcelona fans can say that "financial and structural obstacles" created by capitalism prevented their favorite club from keeping its greatest player. everyone can blame the economy; it's great.
All right -- got to as many as I could. Need to write something about this now. Sorry I couldn't answer all of the questions. Thanks so much for hopping in here, all!
How does this impact Norwich City's pursuit of Josh Sargent?
Sargent to Barca on a free -- like, he plays for free. They don't pay him any money.
And yet, somehow, Barca will lose money on that deal
now it becomes clear why everton have been so quiet
Open your third eye
https://twitter.com/lppny/status/1423346039944355840?s=20
I hate that this was my first thought too.
https://twitter.com/PhillySupremacy/status/1423343249545211906
How does this affect Newcastle's chances of signing Joe Willock?
If Newcastle got bought by the Saudis, there'd be a non-zero chance of Messi playing for Newcastle next season ...
Big facts
I wish I could bet that La Liga will institute a "Bird" rule like the NBA for homegrown players before Messi actually leaves.
Am I insane to think there's still a 75% chance he stays at Barca? ESPN and venture capitalists just dumped a ton of money into this league and part of me thinks it's just a scam to get La Liga to bend the salary cap rules for Barca this year
I wouldn't say it's 75 percent, but yes a part of me finds it hard to believe that Barcelona and Messi didn't understand -- or even know about the existence of? -- the La Liga salary cap until like four weeks ago. The statement makes it sound like they offered Messi a new deal as if there we no salary cap rules, he accepted, and then they realized that there were salary cap rules. Could that be that dense? I don't know. I'll say there's like a 1-in-10 chance he stays at the club.
Conspiracy is that this works for both sides. Barca get to save a bunch of money, Messi gets to play for a team that isn’t a mess, noone’s to blame.
Maybe Barca just way overestimated their ability to move other players to make room for Messi's salary?
basic incompetence by people in power is never a bad bet these days
I wish I could give you more hearts...
Graelish better not list his house for sale just yet....
LOL if he goes to PSG and I remember PSG are also linked with Ronaldo not too long ago, could you imagine the wages? Like a billion per year between the 2 of them
how does aguero feel
Agueroooooooo
I like this response because I'm reading it like Aguero is a pokemon who can only say his own name.
The more information comes out about this thing, the more it suggests (IMO) that this is bargaining tactic from Barca to rejuvenate the Super League project, which they view as the only plausible way out of their financial straits.
YESSS SUPER LEAGUE!
Which (at present hypothetical) oil state funded super team are we obligated to support in the CL final next year? Messi’s PSG or Kane’s Man City?
[slowly backs away from the chat]
spain with a salary cap immediately becomes one of the most fun leagues to watch
That Kane transfer looks even less likely now…
Is losing Messi enough to possibly drop Barca from top 4 or is the gulf too wide even without him?
And does this open up a spot for Coutinho to play for Barca again?
I'm fascinated to see how Barca looks without Messi. It could be an absolute disaster -- the team was built around him doing literally everything in attack -- but they also do still have a lot of good players, both late prime guys that never got going in the Messi-centric system and a bunch of really promising youngsters who are already good enough to start for a top team. I don't see them dropping out of the top four, mainly because I don't trust the Sevillas/Villarrealls/Sociedads of the world.
existence is pain.
Not the end his Barca career deserved. Do Barca now fade as a European superpower? Still a lot of wages to shift to even maintain the balance at this point and they will have significantly less player pulling power.
It's a great question. There are still a bunch of good young players at the club, but the club is a complete mess and why would anyone trust them to suddenly turn things around. Messi has held them up for the last five years. Throw in PSG and the increasing financial power of the Premier League and Bayern just having a monopoly on one of the best talent-producing nations in world soccer, I think we'll Barca slip to where they were in the late 90s and early 2000s -- one of the better teams in Spain, not a true threat in Europe.
But there's a new management at the helm. Doesn't that matter?
I doubt it would happen but I would love to see Messi in the Premier league (not that anyone could really afford him)
City and Chelsea and probably United can all afford him. It could happen, Brandon!
Would it *really* surprise you that after Messi's tax problems and Barcelona's general financial idiocy that neither of them knew about the cap until today? I believe that
There are two options, basically:
1) Barca and Messi are playing a game of chicken, using the statement to force La Liga to reckon with a post-Messi future and then scale back their cap rules after they vacate their bowels.
2) Barca and Messi are used to not abiding by any financial constraints and were caught off guard by the concept of a financial constraint.
The second one seems way more likely to me!
My New Jersey scumbag senses are telling me Messi and/or Barca saw the influx of cash from that private equity group, who probably invested that much (3 Billion) with the expectation that Messi would be in the league. Messi and Barca are trying to force the group into threatening to withdraw the investment unless La Liga changes the cap rules so that Messi can get paid.
Is this going to end up with Harry Kane still on Spurs?
I imagine he just sulks his way back to Spurs training tomorrow like nothing happened and he was there the whole time.
And yes, is this a ploy to lighten the regulations so that Barcelona can register all these players including Messi later on?
We are all rooting for Juventus to pair him with CR7, yes?
While I would watch every match, the official NGITC stance is that we do not condone the phrase "We are all rooting for Juventus" in any form.
https://twitter.com/jpw_nbcsports/status/1423345937582370817?s=21
How significant is the financial impact of Messi leaving going to be, considering by far and away their most marketable player, as well as being responsible for like 30% of their revenue?
Why does this feel worse than when he was leaving because the club's president was an all-around asshole?
It ended with a five-sentence press release about financial and structural obstacles. This isn't how it's supposed to go!
What are the chances Tuchel/Granovskaia/Abramovich hustle and bring Messi to West London?
Probably equally as high as PSG’s? They’ve been trying to snag lukaku from inter for like €130m so its not like they can’t afford him or aren’t looking for an attacker
It’s gotta be PSG, right?
Seems most likely. Maybe they'll actually win Ligue 1 this year!
Why PSG and not city? Pep has got to have at least some pull
The irony of this happening the day after Pep says they're not buying a striker would be so thick you could drizzle it over your pancakes in the morning.
Does this stop Kane from leaving Spurs? Wouldn’t City or United take Messi over him?
Will Haaland wear 9, 10, or another number for Barça when he signs next summer?
Is Alf-Inge Haaland coming out of retirement? Did that get buried with the Messi news?
So is Grealish to City off?? Does that impact their other moves? WHAT IS GOING ON
I don't really understand why Barca hasn't shown any urgency in selling their players people actually want to buy. Like, if you're truly at risk of losing Messi don't just constantly try to find takers for toxic assets like Griezmann and Coutinho. Put a blue chipper like Frankie/Pedri/Fati on the block and try and actually fix this thing, yeah? Or is their financial situation so far gone that that wouldn't even make a dent?
Bingo. They don't seem to be willing to accept any pain. They just want all of the players they don't care about to get scooped up for magical sums of money that will save the club.
is it because that's how it's always been for them?
Because they don't want to gamble their promising future for a minuscule chance at success in the present.
Ummm have you seen how that club had been managed for the last few years?
is there a good article that explains what exactly happened? someone texted me there's a salary cap in Spain... wut? how could that even get passed when all La Liga does is help RM and Barca
The Athletic did a good “explained column” if you subscribe. If you don’t, I signed up for a $1 per month for 6 months deal.
If both sides truly wanted it, is there anything preventing messi from playing this ssn on minimum wage and then back loading contract? A more extreme version of what he already agreed to with the 5 year deal
I don't think there is, but I also don't think the player or the club want to do that.
Assuming Messi does, in fact, leave, which still seems somewhat hard to believe, what does this mean for the future of non-EPL/PSG teams? Seems more and more there’s a small group of teams that basically print money at this point while everyone else struggles to keep up. Is there a way for the Serie A/La Liga/Bundesliga to catch up to the EPL from a money-making perspective or are we heading for a future where the only option for most clubs, even big ones, is “spend smarter”?
Yeah, but this was true whether or not Messi stayed. The weirdest thing about the Super League, to me, was how ready EPL teams were to join in. The Super League already exists; it's the Premier League. I do think other leagues/clubs can catch up, but they need to be way more innovative. The 38-game home-and-away structure kinda stinks in these other leagues, where the same teams almost always win. Why not steer into the randomness a bit and try to make the games more exciting? Just doing your version of the Premier League isn't gonna help you catch the Premier League. I also don't know why a league hasn't been more aggressive about publishing advanced stats and making video widely available like the NBA does. The PL sucks at both of those things and pushing those areas seems like another way to gain a new following.
Is this not the Bundesliga? With fewer teams/games, the largest fan attendance on the continent, partnering with AWS, ESPN+, DAZN, free live games on national TV, and quick succinct highlight reels published shortly after games. Bayern has dominated the league, but it also has the most amount of members of all the clubs in the league (a decent measure of how much support each club has in the country)
I don't really understand FFP, whether it exists, or what the punishments are, but wouldn't it be worth it to sign Messi even if you had to secure loans to sign him and possibly be banned from Europe after this season to win your domestic league and the Champions League this season? Would any teams try this?
I think this summer is gonna be a free-for-all re: FFP. UEFA themselves said it's currently "purposeless", so I think clubs, if they want, will be able to spend a ton of money this summer and not get punished. FFP is retroactively assessed, unlike the La Liga salary cap, which is forward looking. Should that CVC firm pull out from La Liga and help Burnley buy Messi? Absolutely.
Given their constraints, are Barcelona even able to register their other free transfers, Aguero, Depay, Garcia without moving/re-working other big salaries?
Does this impact the Grealish transfer?
Can you please explain / ask someone how la liga can just implement a hard cap without any notice over the summer? Seems completely insane to me that barca has to cut 70% of wages when they got funding so have no immediate cash flow issues. Surely belt tightening should be a long term process. Not a summer one?
The cap has been there for years. It's based partially on club profits so because Barca have been spending above their means for so long combined with COVID effect they are in big trouble.
Yep, Will nailed it. You can definitely take issue with the way the cap is judged and applied, but it's not a new thing.
👍🏼. Seems like given that ffp has laxed, la liga should have followed.
Is there any realistic option besides City, PSG, or a return to Barcelona?
Why not Chelsea? They spent like a drunken sailor last summer. (I don't understand the metaphor but I like the sound, so let's just roll with it.)
Think the idea is sailors can only spend infrequently, with them being mostly out at sea where there aren't any vendors, so they go hard when they're in port.
Basically the exact same as clubs during transfer windows.
Not to lose touch with the thread at hand but I believe the metaphor is "swore like a drunken sailor". In which case this is what I'd be doing if I was Harry Kane right about now.
Reality aside, what's the funniest club Messi could go to? Stoke City?
Burnley would be pretty good. Sean Dyche could use him as an 85th-minute sub for Dwight McNeil.
Barnsley. Let’s see Messi play some lump and squish
Miami Fusion. Not Inter Miami. Miami Fusion. Starting next to Carlos Valderama. Messi was in Miami like a week or 2 ago finalizing the deal.
Stoke City, then Real Madrid
One day after the Forbes article that Barca want to announce new Lionel Messi contract the next day. How? how??
Financial and structural obstacles, baby!
Is the Barcelona player offload done after this, or do they still need to get rid of Griezmann, etc.?
Not clear -- finances aren't public -- but it seems like they probably still do need to find a way to cut salaries.
So La Liga clearly has actual teeth here...Is thinking of this as sort of an NBA Hard Cap the best comparison? Also I can't believe Barca couldn't have planned this poorly right? Was any of this a surprise?
Sort of -- it's dependent on team revenue, so the cap is different for every team. And I think the pandemic just totally fucked their projections. Terrible squad management can survive when you're breaking 1 bil in revenue in a year, and so the team was built with infinite growth as a constant. That being said, it really seems like they only realized these issues a month or two ago -- and it should've been clear, at the club, for a long time now. I guess they also might've been hoping for some leniency from La Liga b/c of the pandemic, but that hasn't really happened.
Who can afford him? Where does this leave Barcelona in terms of their attack and the registration of their new players? Is that possible now? Do they still need to shed more money? It's my understanding they do need to get rid of more dead weight, but I just want confirmation.
Answered the first one a couple times already. I really wish the reporting and the rules on the registration/cap stuff was clearer; I can't give you a concrete answer unfortunately. They can afford a wage bill in the Aston Villa range, per the Athletic, so I think they still need to shed some salary to register all of the guys they've signed.
Actually leaving, or just can't sign the contract they agreed to? Because they could always agree to a different new contract, right? Really depends on how much Messi wants to stay vs how much Messi wants gobs of money?
The statement says "not staying at Barcelona". Yes, Messi could play for like 100 grand a year, but among elite players in their sports, only Tom Brady, whose wife is one fo the richest women on planet earth who doesn't own a Fortune 500 company, has taken a truly sizable pay-cut to stay with a team/help a team win. Don't really think this comes down to Messi being greedy.
Does City pull Grealish bid?
Depends on whether it's been finalized or not. We haven't seen the news confirming it, but it seemed like everything was really close. Then again, clubs have done crazier and shittier things to players.
So Kane stays at Tottenham now right?
I see that "COYS" in your bio. I think Kane staying at Tottenham would've been the most likely outcome even without Messi hitting the market. If City gets Messi, then yes, it's unlikely they also get Kane. But if Messi goes to PSG, I can easily see City feeling like they need to spend big again, in addition to Grealish.
Is there anyone outside of City and PSG who are even remotely conceivable as a Messi destination?
Chelsea, definitely. Maybe United. Probably needs to take a heavy pay-cut to play anywhere else.
Do you think this is a Messi decision (the club are a dumpster fire and he'd be better served elsewhere), a Barca decision (they literally cannot afford to pay him) or a bit of both?
Seems very much like the former, based on all of the sketchy-ish reporting that's come out so far.
is it not the ultimate indictment of capitalism ruining the world's game that the most talented player has essentially had to wait for a global catastrophe to affect the economy in order for him to move clubs (I'm reaching, just nice to chat, Ryan)
yes, and also barcelona fans can say that "financial and structural obstacles" created by capitalism prevented their favorite club from keeping its greatest player. everyone can blame the economy; it's great.
The IMF is the real loser here