Lionel Messi | PSG Watch

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Pretty happy he’s gone to PSG. Didn’t want him to go to City or Chelsea. Not sure where people wanted him to go, Italy?
 

sp_107

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£25m signing bonus
£25m Tax free per season x 2 with option of third plus bonuses.

Could United ever really contend with that?

We can easily generate that money on additional merchendising / Shirt sales Bonus / new sponserships over 2 years but it doesnt look like he is keen to test himself in England at this age.

If he signed with Barca before Juky is this would have happened or they might have got rid of other players ?
 

sp_107

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I tend to think clubs like chelsea / PSG / City are plastic but after 20 years people only remember who won and how many times so its good for their fans.

Sometimes i wish we have owners like that but if i use my senses then I feel better we win something with our current model than with sugar daddy money as winning with respect is what matters most,
I dont think many give credit to teams like city/chelsea/psg even they win big.
 

Luttrell

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Money talks. He has won everything at club level and now its a time to enjoy his time in Paris getting a nice contract.

Realistically, he only needs to turn up for 10 CL games? The rest of the time he can play at walking pace.
He get less in Paris, than Barca.And he could got a 100 mln in Qatar, Dubai or China.
I highly doubt that. They will not be able to afford his wages. Most likely go to America.
After 2 year at PSG ,he will come back for a symbolic salary and end hes legacy in Europe
Apparently he feels betrayed by Barca. After holding the club to ransom for years, and the club now on its arse after paying his ridiculous wages, he's the one who feels betrayed.
Great player, total shithead.
Of course ))) and you believed in 1 sec to this info.I bet you liked Messi before this move ))))
 
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Eddy_JukeZ

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I am really curious to see if Messi and Neymar can co-exist at a high level again.

Neymar's not as direct as he was during the MSN years. I wonder if he'll go back to that.

I don't know if you can afford to give 2 players essentially free roles in attack even if it's Messi and Neymar.
 

Daysleeper

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I am really curious to see if Messi and Neymar can co-exist at a high level again.

Neymar's not as direct as he was during the MSN years. I wonder if he'll go back to that.

I don't know if you can afford to give 2 players essentially free roles in attack even if it's Messi and Neymar.
I do wonder about PSG’s workrate but I think we have an attack that could reach MSN levels
 

Cloud7

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PSG had to find new ways to generate income, that's why they went with Jordan. I don't have all the numbers in mind but i do know it increase a LOT in the last couple of years between Neymar/Mbappé and Jordan, especially in north america.
In Trinidad there are a lot more people buying PSG kits than you used to see before. Especially in the younger generation. The star players are a big allure for the up and coming generation of fans, particularly for international fans.
 

Daysleeper

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Well, why not? It would be fun to see him try to deal his way tight defenses that are a strong part of an entire country's footballing identity.
Serie A has tons of goals, the hyper defense serie A has been gone for a while
 

Lord SInister

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I don't know why people think Messi would have issues with EPL defenders or any other league... he's Shown he can compete against the best teams in every league and the best defenders in the world with his champions league/ national team performances.
Because people who say that barely watch La Liga and think every team in La Liga has Barcelona like ball playing soft defender :lol: .

If Messi could handle the physicality and thuggery of Real/Atletico Madrid, Andalusian clubs and Bilbao, what makes people think he cannot handle fcuking Burnley:lol:, especially playing with super rich and stacked Manchester City.
 

RedDevilPure

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I've always been supportive of him over Ronaldo and think he is the greater player but when people give shit to Ronaldo for going to Serie A because Juventus was dominating the league at that time, so now I think Messi deserves all the criticism he gets for going to Ligue 1. This is essentially a farmer's league where the drop-off in quality from the top 3 are so far from the rest. This is frankly embarrassing that the GOAT is spending his last years in France which really is such a shame and cheapened his legacy. Perhaps he couldn't stay at Barca anymore even if he plays for free, but I am sure if he tries to work something out with Barca, they will do everything they can to keep him by offloading some players.

Messi could also try to push for a move to City if he really wanted.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Club football:
So what you are saying is that Ronaldo has a large enough body of work to discuss, analyze and criticize his performance across different leagues while Messi has nothing. Ok got it.
So while the rest of us live in the real world and discuss what actually happened while Ronaldo played at Juventus, you can live in your imaginary world and fantasize about how Messi scored a hat-trick against Chelsea in the 2014 Carabao Cup.

International football:
You could have just replaced what you wrote with "Messi has won ZERO world cups despite playing in a better side than Ronaldo for most of his career. Messi has won only ONE Copa despite playing 4 Copas in the last 6 years." Would have saved you time.
Messi will score 20 goals against Brazil in a friendly while playing against Stupidinho, Ricardo Crapinho and No Talentino but in a competitive game against Neymar, Thiago Silva and Casemiro, he will disappear for the most part.

Your God is now a tool for a regime that is directly involved with bonded labor and has poor human rights in general. He is literally a mannequin for a country accused of bribing their way to host the World Cup. Keep seething!
These threads really bring out the lowest standard of posts on the caf. YouTube comments section worthy.
 

R'hllor

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Exactly, now tell me what western country own Manchester united or Liverpool or any of the big historical clubs and use the club as a PR machine?
They dont need to, they washed their hands of someone`s elses blood, sweat and tears long long time ago but this thread aint for this topic.
 

kc7

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Club football:
So what you are saying is that Ronaldo has a large enough body of work to discuss, analyze and criticize his performance across different leagues while Messi has nothing. Ok got it.
So while the rest of us live in the real world and discuss what actually happened while Ronaldo played at Juventus, you can live in your imaginary world and fantasize about how Messi scored a hat-trick against Chelsea in the 2014 Carabao Cup.

International football:
You could have just replaced what you wrote with "Messi has won ZERO world cups despite playing in a better side than Ronaldo for most of his career. Messi has won only ONE Copa despite playing 4 Copas in the last 6 years." Would have saved you time.
Messi will score 20 goals against Brazil in a friendly while playing against Stupidinho, Ricardo Crapinho and No Talentino but in a competitive game against Neymar, Thiago Silva and Casemiro, he will disappear for the most part.

Your God is now a tool for a regime that is directly involved with bonded labor and has poor human rights in general. He is literally a mannequin for a country accused of bribing their way to host the World Cup. Keep seething!
1) says the guy who cannot explain why Ronaldo failed in La Liga winning only twice in 9 years.
2) cannot explain how Portugal lost in WC 2014 to mighty USA, Chile to 2017 and Uruguay to 2018..
3) calls Ronaldo's Juve adventure a success where he lost to mighty Ajax, 10-man Porto, and Lyon in 3 years in CL when that Juve played 2 finals in 4 years prior to his arrival and when CL success was the sole reason Juve bought him..
4) cannot explain how Juve, the team that won 9 Serie As in a row failed to win Serie A after 10 years finishing 4th with him))
5) cannot explain how a stacked Portugal team, one of the top 4-5 teams in this EC, could not even reach QFs.
6) says EC is stronger than COPA listing top EC teams such as Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, England etc. when told Portugal played none of those, backtracks)
7) cannot explain why Ronaldo has never won a single player of the tournament award vs Messi's 3 (including a WC) in an international tournament..
8) compares Messi and Ronaldo only looking at goals, cannot comprehend that Messi is an elite playmaker + elite goal scorer vs Ronaldo who is just an elite goal scorer, and even in that, Messi has a better goal per game ratio.
9) says "while the rest of us...." who is the rest of you?))You probably meant Ronaldo fans living in fantasy land..Most people in this forum call Juve experience of Ronaldo a complete failure and a bad decision..

Your boy has been a part of a team that has been relegated to Serie B due to match fixing scandal and was stripped of their title, Calciopoli, so much ethics..

You can continue doing as much mental gymnastics as possible, does not change the fact a bit that Ronaldo failed miserably in La Liga, with Juve in CL (and even in Serie A showing the worst performance with him in the last 10 years in Serie A), and with his national team against so called "weak" American teams year in year out including 2 last WCs..
 
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Pickle85

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Nobody is saying they aint cnut regime, they doing similar shit as western countries in the past just with huge lag.
But this is just whataboutery. Doesn't make it any less abhorrent and any less worthy of calling out.
 

sillwuka

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Those PSG/Jordan homage shorts are lovely.

I'll actually pay attention to them this season purely because of Messi - masterstroke by the club.
 

Gehrman

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Seems wrong for Messi to have the nr. 30 shirt even if he started out with that one at Barca.
 

Classical Mechanic

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BT Sport must be loving have the french league rights in the UK!
Doubt they'll do big numbers. No one watched La Liga here when they had Ronaldo, Messi and the best sides in the world. La Liga struggled to find a buyer for the rights in recent years. The novelty of PSG will soon wear off for most when the standard of opposition become apparent.
 

Judas

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People will tune in to watch a few games, but much like when everyone was going to watch the BL last year because the PL hadn't started up again, the novelty won't last just due to the standard being so low.
 

CG1010

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Say what you want about Messi, Barca and PSG but for Messi this can't be all that bad career wise. PSG should be the favourites to win Champions League. Gets paid a shit ton.. and he's got the I-couldn't-stay-despite-offering-to-cut-wage-by-50-percent-card. Barcelona is a mess anyways.
Except he tried to leave for free from Barca just last year. But I agree that its not a bad career move in the immediate sense but from a legacy perspective, would have preferred him to go to a bigger club and league.
 

VorZakone

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People will tune in to watch a few games, but much like when everyone was going to watch the BL last year because the PL hadn't started up again, the novelty won't last just due to the standard being so low.
Also this isn't the best version of Messi anymore. He's ageing.
 

AmanNits04

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Statistically speaking, which other club would have been able to afford him. And i for one am glad that he CHOSE PSG. Let's be honest, we all would be shitting bricks if he had come to city.
 

RoyH1

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Messi 30?

And why would they spend half the video showing off their gift store or something? Why not show of some trophies or something?!
What trophies? Ligue 1's? Marseille and Saint-Etienne still have more of those even a decade after being bought by Qatar.

European trophies? They have no more than the likes of Aberdeen or West Ham.
 

Classical Mechanic

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What PSG will be is the best viral club in football. Young kids posting crazy goals or tricks by Messi, Neymar or Mbappe against Lorient on social media with captions like 'Messi is fecked' or whatever term is in fashion at the time. The state of modern football means that commercially this is a big thing. It seems a lot of the younger generation consume football like this now.
 

11101

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What PSG will be is the best viral club in football. Young kids posting crazy goals or tricks by Messi, Neymar or Mbappe against Lorient on social media with captions like 'Messi is fecked' or whatever term is in fashion at the time. The state of modern football means that commercially this is a big thing. It seems a lot of the younger generation consume football like this now.
Probably true. We'll get clips of endless stepover and flicks against cannon fodder, though in the Champions League personally i think PSG will slip back to their usual round of 16/quarter final thrashings when they face a half decent team. The last couple of seasons were unusual and they're not going to get another easy draw.
 

DutchCruijff

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There is no such a thing as wage structure in sports and even if it was actually a thing Messi is considerably more valuable than any player not named Ronaldo. No player has an argument when he comes to the negociation table and use Messi as a reference, they can comeback when they are all time greats.
What? There is no such thing as a "wage structure" in sports?

Are you even a United fan? We had a strict wage structure in place throughout the 1990s till the early 00s (particularly in the early era) that prevented us from signing mega players that SAF often bemoaned.

Every single club that has a financial brain has a sound wage structure in place otherwise one leads to unsustainable expenses, unsustainable salary demands due to others' being hiked and unsustainable morale issues.

It grates how many times this has to be stated.

As if any player can go to upper management and use anything to do with Messi as a reference point for their own negotiations.

Until somebody in a team Messi is in outperforms him, or even comes close, it's one of the daftest lines of thinking I see posted in relation to Messi/Barcelona.
And with regards to both of you mentioning Messi's contract not being used as a benchmark. Of course it is, you think Griezmann and his agency, one of the top forwards in the world, a marketable player and a World Cup winner, is going to NOT use Messi as a key benchmark? Who is his Griezmann's agents going to use as his contract benchmark to extract the most from Barca? A high figure - like Messi - or a lower figure like ter Stegen?

Griezmann for United would earn around £400-450K (€450-500K), why? Because we have a wage structure in place and it is a sustainable figure. He's being paid, I believe, around €800-900K at Barcelona , that is about 70-100% more than he would at Man Utd. It is not for nothing when the highest earner, who has shattered the wage structrue, earns €2.5m per week.

Absolutely NO ONE is suggesting anyone in the team receives the same salary. But Griezmann's agency, representing an elite player in his own right and a World Cup winner, doesn't turn around and accept a salary 6-7x less than the highest earner.

Not to mention, The Athletic has literally come out with an article today saying the EXACT same thing -

"A big problem for Barca, and huge consideration for all the players and agents involved, is that Messi’s sky-high salary set the top of the scale at the club. Bartomeu was widely seen as a soft touch by the club’s Catalan core of homegrown players who all got bumper pay rises during his term, and by agents of newer arrivals such as Ousmane Dembele, Griezmann and Coutinho. “The other players’ salaries are high because Messi’s salary was high,” says a source."

https://theathletic.com/2758624/202...arcelona-more-cuts-more-drama-more-anger/?amp

There's a fundamental lack of financial knowledge and what it means to run a sustainable model on display.
 

DutchCruijff

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Correct.

Imagine a top 25 UFC fighter demanding Conor Mcgregor pay days when that fighter brings in a 1000 ppv’s only in stead of milions. The commercial value of any athlete dictates the leverage in negotiations. Tangible criteria are assessed such as PPV’ numbers, social media traffick, sponsor deals etc (criteria differ depending on the sport).

It’s unfortunate that people during discussions like these are not aware of these factors in order to objectively try form conclusions.
We're talking Griezmann here, an elite player, a very marketable player and a World Cup winner who cost Barcelona €120 million. His agency does not accept a contract that is 6-7x less than the highest earner. They use such an elite level player and a key benchmark is the highest earner, that was/is Messi at €2.5m per week ergo it is why Griezmann ended up at €800-900K per week himself.

These wages aren't random, players' agencies negotiate the best deals for whom they represent. The wage structure was shattered at Barcelona - by Messi's contract - and the key benchmark for high earners - the highest earner, Messi's contract - was obscene.

It's unfortunate that you're unaware of the basics of finance and contract negotiations. It's also unfortunate for you that someone from Barca has literally said the same thing today -

"A big problem for Barca, and huge consideration for all the players and agents involved, is that Messi’s sky-high salary set the top of the scale at the club. Bartomeu was widely seen as a soft touch by the club’s Catalan core of homegrown players who all got bumper pay rises during his term, and by agents of newer arrivals such as Ousmane Dembele, Griezmann and Coutinho. “The other players’ salaries are high because Messi’s salary was high,” says a source."

https://theathletic.com/2758624/202...arcelona-more-cuts-more-drama-more-anger/?amp

I'm not sure whether some folk hold Messi up as some untouchable icon that can do no wrong but his obscene contract had a very, very significant part - amongst other factors, of course - in what has happened to Barcelona today and as to why he has been shown the door.
 

big rons sovereign

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He get less in Paris, than Barca.And he could got a 100 mln in Qatar, Dubai or China.

After 2 year at PSG ,he will come back for a symbolic salary and end hes legacy in Europe

Of course ))) and you believed in 1 sec to this info.I bet you liked Messi before this move ))))
Christ. Super duper fanboy.
He'll not be going back, he's sucked them dry and moved on.
 

JPRouve

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What? There is no such thing as a "wage structure" in sports?

Are you even a United fan? We had a strict wage structure in place throughout the 1990s till the early 00s (particularly in the early era) that prevented us from signing mega players that SAF often bemoaned.

Every single club that has a financial brain has a sound wage structure in place otherwise one leads to unsustainable expenses, unsustainable salary demands due to others' being hiked and unsustainable morale issues.
The point is that it's a subjective and individualized decision from the owners. There is no actual wage structure, two similar players won't necessarily have the same wage, their contracts won't be structured the same way, contracts are highly individualized in sport, the amount that a player can earn isn't set beforehand. An owner can give himself a limit but he can break it whenever he wants and doesn't have to justify it, no employee can actually turn around and claim that based on an unexistant wage structure he should earn a particular amount.

What happened in the 90s with the PLC is that they wanted to maximize their own dividends which by the way wasn't a regular thing since most clubs aren't businesses and not meant to remunerate a board. So the PLC made up a completely bogus wage structure narrative which was by the way abandoned by the Glazers quickly after the complete purchase.
 

Fortitude

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What? There is no such thing as a "wage structure" in sports?

Are you even a United fan? We had a strict wage structure in place throughout the 1990s till the early 00s (particularly in the early era) that prevented us from signing mega players that SAF often bemoaned.

Every single club that has a financial brain has a sound wage structure in place otherwise one leads to unsustainable expenses, unsustainable salary demands due to others' being hiked and unsustainable morale issues.



And with regards to both of you mentioning Messi's contract not being used as a benchmark. Of course it is, you think Griezmann and his agency, one of the top forwards in the world, a marketable player and a World Cup winner, is going to NOT use Messi as a key benchmark? Who is his Griezmann's agents going to use as his contract benchmark to extract the most from Barca? A high figure - like Messi - or a lower figure like ter Stegen?

Griezmann for United would earn around £400-450K (€450-500K), why? Because we have a wage structure in place and it is a sustainable figure. He's being paid, I believe, around €800-900K at Barcelona , that is about 70-100% more than he would at Man Utd. It is not for nothing when the highest earner, who has shattered the wage structrue, earns €2.5m per week.

Absolutely NO ONE is suggesting anyone in the team receives the same salary. But Griezmann's agency, representing an elite player in his own right and a World Cup winner, doesn't turn around and accept a salary 6-7x less than the highest earner.

Not to mention, The Athletic has literally come out with an article today saying the EXACT same thing -

"A big problem for Barca, and huge consideration for all the players and agents involved, is that Messi’s sky-high salary set the top of the scale at the club. Bartomeu was widely seen as a soft touch by the club’s Catalan core of homegrown players who all got bumper pay rises during his term, and by agents of newer arrivals such as Ousmane Dembele, Griezmann and Coutinho. “The other players’ salaries are high because Messi’s salary was high,” says a source."

https://theathletic.com/2758624/202...arcelona-more-cuts-more-drama-more-anger/?amp

There's a fundamental lack of financial knowledge and what it means to run a sustainable model on display.
You bolded the wrong part: "Bartomeu was widely seen as a soft touch by the club’s Catalan core of homegrown players who all got bumper pay rises during his term, and by agents of newer arrivals such as Ousmane Dembele, Griezmann and Coutinho" this is the crux. Messi, the outlier in the sport being used as barometer by others would get laughed out of town, just as in other sports where there are earners in different stratospheres on the same teams.

The problem here is using the greatest outlier there is to establish a mean. He's an island separated from the norms and structure what you're saying is applicable to.

You used Griezmann and his World Cup exploits as a comparative to Messi, arguably the greatest player of all time and a god at Barcelona. You do realise how absurd that is? On any scale, Messi is the sun and others are components in the remainder left to sort out what they can amongst themselves. Bartomeu playing Santa with others in the team has everything to do with Barcelona's predicament. A stronger president would have incentivised the lesser lights with the carrot of perform anything like Messi and watch your contract rise exponentially.
 

iKnowNothing

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What trophies? Ligue 1's? Marseille and Saint-Etienne still have more of those even a decade after being bought by Qatar.

European trophies? They have no more than the likes of Aberdeen or West Ham.
That’s my point too. They have a few league 1s, show that at the very least. That’s better than showing a fecking store!