Lionel Messi | PSG Watch

Rolaholic

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Best thing about this is that I bet City's regime are seething it's not them.
Yea it's completely taken all the hype and attention away from the Grealish signing even though they paid an EPL record fee :lol:
 

awop

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Terribly boring and average announcement video. You've signed the GOAT ffs - put in some more effort into the video. Hell our announcement video for Fred was much better
Give them a break, It's hard to find a piano on such short notice.
 

MiceOnMeth

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The greatest ever retiring in the French league earning obscene money from an oil club.. hard not to feel a bit disappointed a little in Leo.
 

Fooza

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What an underwhelming move to end a great career.
Best league to retire at his age, now PSG can try win the league by January, and he'll just have to rest for the CL games
 

Toad

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Officially official


That was fast as hell :lol:
Rumour has it that his foot is still planted firmly on the ball, it would take only the worthy to pull it from under his foot.

In other news Neymar has dislocated both his shoulders by trying to move a heavy object and will be out for the first half of the season.
 

A-man

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What an underwhelming move to end a great career.
Yep, been wanting him to make a move for a long time and he does this…

Anyways, will be kind of cool to see him and Ramos in the same team.
 

R'hllor

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Holy shit some really cant take this move, FFP this FFP that, FFP is dead and i guess every wealthy owner could put their own money on the table for him, its not their fault some pump money into the club for whatever personal reason and some using their club to pump money out. Also whole moral highground is getting boring as well.
 

BarstoolProphet

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Messi Shirts have sold out [ L'Equipe ]

I really think Messi will almost pay for himselfes. His shirts sales will be insane
Once again, their PR working overtime. I bet Messi, not normal travel situation after a pandemic, will be credited for the expected increase in tourists in Paris the next 12 months.
 

SportingCP96

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Best move he could have done.

He guarantees some more league titles and will rack up goals and assists against the weak opposition he will face in France compared to PSG who are a super power.

He gets to play in by far the best team in the world now and unless they are complete losers which they have way too many good and experienced winners to be then PSG should walk the CL with relative ease.
 

Pickle85

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Holy shit some really cant take this move, FFP this FFP that, FFP is dead and i guess every wealthy owner could put their own money on the table for him, its not their fault some pump money into the club for whatever personal reason and some using their club to pump money out. Also whole moral highground is getting boring as well.
Yep, how dare people decry a club owned by a human rights abusing regime signing players to burnish their reputation. Bang out of order, that.
 

Oly Francis

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Once again, their PR working overtime. I bet Messi, not normal travel situation after a pandemic, will be credited for the expected increase in tourists in Paris the next 12 months.
We know jersey's are just a little part of the increased revenues. Even if PSG sells 300 000 Messi jersey (totally doable), PSG would only make around 9M.
There's no surprise it's already sold out, the stocks were probably pretty slim considering they only had a couple of days to manufacture the 1st batch.
 

Marwood

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How depressing that the best player in the world is available for free and only one club can afford the phone call.

Football is broken.
That's not happened because football is broken.

It's happened because one guy and his entourage think they're worth a million a week.
 

sp_107

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He is perfect for them, Next year world cup in PSG owners country too so Messi will be the poster boy of world cup promotion, and they very good money as part of that too. win-win for both.

Looks like PSG is becoming R|eal Madrid
 

choccy77

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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?
 

duffer

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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?
Of course. That's £75 million over 2 years.

You've already spent way more than that (plus whatever wages Sancho & Varane are on) this summer.

You could absolutely afford to pay crazy wages, you just don't want to (and that's perfectly reasonable).
 

R'hllor

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Yep, how dare people decry a club owned by a human rights abusing regime signing players to burnish their reputation. Bang out of order, that.
Nobody is saying they aint cnut regime, they doing similar shit as western countries in the past just with huge lag.
 

awop

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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?
Easily. But as we saw that's a very dangerous game.
 

Beans

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Disappointed, he must care more about money than anything to play in the French league. PSG don't even need him to win the league, at least they shouldn't.

But I didn't think he'd want to face EPL defenders at this age, in a league that's much more physical than any other. Di Maria didn't adapt well at all, I feel like he was tackled right out of the league.
 

Giggs86

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He is perfect for them, Next year world cup in PSG owners country too so Messi will be the poster boy of world cup promotion, and they very good money as part of that too. win-win for both.

Looks like PSG is becoming R|eal Madrid
The plastic, Aliexpress version of Real Madrid, minus the trophies.
 

edcunited1878

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PSG's accounts are public. For the fiscal year that closed in 2020, the revenue loss was 90M and it probably doesn't take into account the CL final 8 earnings since it occured during the next fiscal year.

You have no need to immediately offset the sudden spike in spendings, you can get short term loans and figure that out before june 30th. Even if what you say is true, most companies start their fiscal years on january 1st so new budgets can be unlocked.
As a football club, their fiscal year would be in parallel to their league...thus is starting in the middle of the year and ending in the middle of the year. You can also look at quarterly YoY starting with Q2 2020....everybody in world football and most companies in the world took a revenue hit. Any FFP was/is looked at over seasons, not calendar years starting and ending on 1st Jan to 31st Dec.

All the players and staff continued to get paid throughout the entire season without a main revenue stream (matchday income). How has PSG "unlocked" more budget and revenue when they didn't have matchday revenue, their domestic TV deal isn't strong enough to justify this individual club spend because none of their competitive teams are doing anything like lower league PL teams, and they're still paying amortized fees for Neymar and Mbappe (that could be slightly reduced by some sales), to that, their sponsorship deals are not amongst the highest in club football - look to the PL for that?

And this was incremental to the "free" transfer costs incurred by multiple big name players, before Messi came on.
 

RedDevilQuebecois

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What an underwhelming move to end a great career.
Pretty much. The bloke is already crazy ass rich, so it makes little sense to go for even more money when he could have done something different for the love of the game. Many top stars went for something very different and sometimes a lot simpler at those ages (34-35) like Arjen Robben helping out his first club in the Netherlands (Groningen) to recover from losses related to COVID-19 or Roy Keane joining the club he supported as a child (Celtic). It's a shame that Messi doesn't carry Newell's Old Boys too much in his heart 'cause he could have helped them put up a real challenge for the Argentine league.

But beyond that, the bigger problem is how Messi easily sold himself to a morally bankrupt entity/country that represents everything we hate about modern football. Qatar couldn't ask for a better PR stunt ahead of their mess of a World Cup. It's disgusting.
 

RedPed

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Well at least PSG will get 48000 at their stadium every other week now for a couple of years until the circus leaves town.
 

MalcolmTucker

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Pretty much. The bloke is already crazy ass rich, so it makes little sense to go for even more money when he could have done something different for the love of the game. Many top stars went for something very different and sometimes a lot simpler at those ages (34-35) like Arjen Robben helping out his first club in the Netherlands (Groningen) to recover from losses related to COVID-19 or Roy Keane joining the club he supported as a child (Celtic). It's a shame that Messi doesn't carry Newell's Old Boys too much in his heart 'cause he could have helped them put up a real challenge for the Argentine league.

But beyond that, the bigger problem is how Messi easily sold himself to a morally bankrupt entity/country that represents everything we hate about modern football. Qatar couldn't ask for a better PR stunt ahead of their mess of a World Cup. It's disgusting.
Messi is favourite to win the Ballon D'or - he's not going to go the Argentine league as the best player in the world! I do agree it's a shame he has gone to an oil club and the guy does seem to be very greedy, but I understand it from a footballing perspective, even though it would have been great to see him in the PL (for us).
 

JPRouve

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Well at least PSG will get 48000 at their stadium every other week now for a couple of years until the circus leaves town.
That's their normal affluence, they are at 99%.
 

Zen

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Pretty much. The bloke is already crazy ass rich, so it makes little sense to go for even more money when he could have done something different for the love of the game. Many top stars went for something very different and sometimes a lot simpler at those ages (34-35) like Arjen Robben helping out his first club in the Netherlands (Groningen) to recover from losses related to COVID-19 or Roy Keane joining the club he supported as a child (Celtic). It's a shame that Messi doesn't carry Newell's Old Boys too much in his heart 'cause he could have helped them put up a real challenge for the Argentine league.
Those two ... we're more or less done, not about to win the Ballon d'Or. The Newell's Old Boys move you craze is still a potential.

His arrival at any other club doesn't make them obscene favourites outside of City and PSG. He'd also still have to mega key to domestic aspirations anywhere else too, which he likely doesn't want and/or need when chasing CL titles.
 

Oly Francis

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As a football club, their fiscal year would be in parallel to their league...thus is starting in the middle of the year and ending in the middle of the year. You can also look at quarterly YoY starting with Q2 2020....everybody in world football and most companies in the world took a revenue hit. Any FFP was/is looked at over seasons, not calendar years starting and ending on 1st Jan to 31st Dec.

All the players and staff continued to get paid throughout the entire season without a main revenue stream (matchday income). How has PSG "unlocked" more budget and revenue when they didn't have matchday revenue, their domestic TV deal isn't strong enough to justify this individual club spend because none of their competitive teams are doing anything like lower league PL teams, and they're still paying amortized fees for Neymar and Mbappe (that could be slightly reduced by some sales), to that, their sponsorship deals are not amongst the highest in club football - look to the PL for that?

And this was incremental to the "free" transfer costs incurred by multiple big name players, before Messi came on.
PSG recruited players AFTER the beginning of this fiscal year, they didn't unlock more budget last year, they basically have a whole year to find revenues to offset any increase in expenses, with a full stadium, transfers, new partnerships etc. Also, the club earned 126M by reaching the CL final 2 seasons ago and 112M for this year's semi final.
 

Bastian

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Best move he could have done.

He guarantees some more league titles and will rack up goals and assists against the weak opposition he will face in France compared to PSG who are a super power.

He gets to play in by far the best team in the world now and unless they are complete losers which they have way too many good and experienced winners to be then PSG should walk the CL with relative ease.
I agree that it's a great move for him. There is no such thing as walking the CL with ease though. Always the potential to be knocked out. But he's playing in a team that's built for the here and now and he has a fellow countryman manager and quite a few friends already in the team with a club that pays him what he wants and his family get to swap Barcelona (amazing city) for Paris (fabulous city).

And so many of us who have hitherto not given a monkeys about the French league are getting excited to tune in to watch that lineup.

Doesn't mean that it isn't hollow, akin to City, as it most definitely is. But in terms of the football, it has to be said, it's quite an exciting prospect.
 

RedDevilPure

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It would be nice to see him in England but as a United fan hell no it wouldn't be nice seeing him at City at all :lol::nono:

P$G is the lesser of 2 evils in this situation so I'm glad he opted for them instead of City, the power/dynamic shift in Manchester would've likely been permanent had he gone over to the blue side of town
Definitely agree on this, City should have done everything they can to sign him. Messi elevate any club status single-handedly. I still find it such a shame and so tragic that the greatest of all time choose to spend his last few years even he is still better than all footballers out there playing in France. This whole move is still so hard for me to sink in. Surreal.
 

Suedesi

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I hate this move so much. Messi in Barcelona is an institution, PSG is a club made possible with financial doping and underhand payouts competing in a at best, moderately interesting league.

Great job La Liga and Bartomeu.
I actually don't mind this move that much. This is a bit of payback for all the greed and arrogance and poaching La Liga teams (esp Barca and Real) showed in the last decade. The media campaigns, the poaching of players when they were in the national team, the arrogance that La Liga is the best and every other club should just hand over their stars as if they had a divine right. Ronaldo, Modric, Bale, Cesc, Suarez to name but a few. Barca tried it with Verrati too, and were close until the PSG owners took it personally and said feck off. Then they bought Neymar. That move and the subsequent paniced Barca transfers started the beginning of the end for Barcelona. Getting Messi is the ultimate conclusion.

Messi moving to Paris is the worst - short of going to Bernabeu - absolute worst destination for a Barca fan.

As a neutral I'm enjoying a bit of schadenfreude.
 

The holy trinity 68

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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.
Yeah, they are allowed to abuse human rights and treat people like second class citizens because the British Empire existed. Let them have their turn at causing misery because other nations have done worse in the past.

Have a day off, you are having a right mare pal.
 

Womp

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Disappointed, he must care more about money than anything to play in the French league. PSG don't even need him to win the league, at least they shouldn't.

But I didn't think he'd want to face EPL defenders at this age, in a league that's much more physical than any other. Di Maria didn't adapt well at all, I feel like he was tackled right out of the league.
ADM was one of our best players before his form took a nose dive with the robbery and all that.

Messi would shit all over this league

He's joining PSG as he has friends there, they're a much better prospect than any team here that would have probably been interested and it's a beautiful city for someone who has a settled family. Plus the money of course.

What a fecking team though, if they don't win the CL now, they never will