Adiós Leo
Written on August 14th, 2021 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}The most high-profile transfer in world football was confirmed as Lionel Messi took his departure from Barcelona to join Paris Saint Germain. The player spent 21 years at the club, terrorizing defenses wherever he stepped foot, grabbing attention of anyone who laid their eyes on this magician. Having bagged a plethora of accolades along the way, it seemed set in stone that he would spend his entire career and retire with the Blaugrana. Unfortunately, fate has its own destiny and he had to leave due to crippling financial troubles.
The dreaded day finally arrived. The 5th of August 2021 will forever remain etched in our memories as the day when one of the greatest, and the most talented footballers of our sport bid adieu to his abode, FC Barcelona. The official club statement conveyed that, “Despite the club and player reaching an agreement and their clear intention to sign a new contract today, this cannot happen because of financial and structural obstacles.” Regardless of whether you are someone that has an iota of knowledge about the sport of football or on the most brutal of contraries, are a supporter of Barcelona’s most fiercest rivals, Real Madrid, the departure of this ‘little’ man from Camp Nou has already had an impact on your life, be it through directly consuming the breaking news or indirectly watching on in angst as your nearest ‘cule’ relative throws tantrums tainted with melancholic whines for days to come. His name? Lionel Andres Messi.
In his 21-year stint at the club, he played 778 games and recorded a whopping total of 672 goals and 305 assists, which implies that he would on average, contribute to more than a goal being scored in every single game he played for the Catalonian outfit. These contributions bore the sweetest fruit, as he won a total of 34 major honours, including 10 La Liga (Spanish league) titles, 7 Copa del Rey (Spanish knockout Cup) titles and most importantly, winning the most coveted European Club Competition, the UEFA Champions League, 4 times. These were ‘just’ his team accolades. It is on the individual front where the list of his achievements exceeds all the possible dimensions that a list can have. The Ballon d’Or has always been at the zenith of individual footballing achievements for the tag of the best footballer of a particular year, and winning even one of these is normally a direct ticket to legendary status. Messi has won 6 of these, with the possibility of making it 7 by the end of 2021.
The sheer magnitude of his 100+ other individual accolades isn’t even the most shocking thing. The ease at which he kept bagging these awards is what has been astonishing. With every passing year, he and his career rival Cristiano Ronaldo would keep pushing the bars of what a human could do with a football, to the comical extent where some would question whether they even belonged to this planet. One of them is the perfect mirror image of a clinical robot that works as an ideal machine and the other is the reincarnation of God himself, seeking to educate the ‘mere mortals’ on how the beautiful game should be played. However, it would be rather naive of us to simply brush aside the circumstances behind his exit.
La Liga regulations from 2013 include a salary cap clause for all teams that limits the player transfer costs and wages to 70% of their annual revenues. The club was already burdened with astronomical amounts of debt, the value of which was reported to be over a billion Euros, along with additional reports suggesting that they had to compulsorily shed over 200 million USD in salaries to be able to renew Messi’s contract which, even after him accepting a 50% cut in his wages, seemed like a tall order. But, in a major twist of events, it was reported that Javier Tebas, the La Liga President entered into an agreement with CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm that was willing to invest 3.2 billion USD into the league, wherein post-approval of the Assembly of clubs, Barcelona were expected to pocket 320 million USD, 15% of which was permitted to be utilized in squad reinforcements and therefore, potentially serve as vital cash injection for clearing away that 200 million deficit. However, the deal-breaker for both Barcelona and Real Madrid was that a new company would be created to which the league would transfer all of its businesses, subsidiaries and joint ventures in which CVC would hold a minority stake of approximately 10% of the capital. Both these clubs were unwilling to let go of that amount of their audiovisual rights for the next 50 years.
Thus, with the rejection of this proposal went all the hopes that existed for Messi to put pen to paper and stay at the club. Now, from the club’s point of view, only time can confirm whether they made the correct financial decision, given that they’ve lost an asset that guaranteed roof-smashing merchandise and sponsorship income, along with being the symbolic embodiment of what Barcelona stands for, ‘Mes que un club’. Watching his farewell speech did induce tears in many eyes as it was painful to watch someone who had an exponentially positive impact on our childhoods break down due to circumstances that were completely beyond his sphere of influence. It is difficult to look for positives right now, especially if you’re a Barcelona supporter, but the signings of Sergio Aguero, Eric Garcia, Emerson and Memphis Depay for a combined fee of 9 million Euros does help in sorting out the problems Barcelona had with their squad depth, along with a net-positive in terms of results during pre-season.
As far as Messi is concerned, he seems to be headed towards the direction of Paris Saint Germain, who have reportedly formally put their offer of a two-year deal with an option to extend that to a third on the table, estimated to be worth 35 million Euros annually with included add-ons. This does raise some suspicions, however, on how PSG get a free-pass on spending exorbitant amounts on their wages, given they already possess the two most expensive transfers in football history in Neymar and Kylian Mbappe along with having already purchased the likes of Georginio Wijnaldum, Achraf Hakimi, Sergio Ramos and Gianluigi Donnarumma this summer. Conspiracy theories are periodically concocted on the presence of their owner Nasser Al-Khelaifi in the UEFA Executive Committee being one of the major factors behind Financial Fair Play seeming to not bat an eye on their transfer activities, however this is a concrete topic for another day. At the time of writing this article, Messi has landed in the City of Love, where we all know he will continue to keep us in love with him and the game for the last few years of his illustrious career. It will be difficult to see him in a European outfit other than that of Barcelona, but all that matters to us is that he is happy to keep entertaining us all whenever he steps on the pitch.