When Messi let his contract with Barcelona expire without a new deal, the whole world started speculating on where he might go next. The odds were in Barca’s favour from the beginning, a thing seemingly confirmed by the news about the player and the club working on a new deal. Unfortunately (or not – it remains to be seen) things didn’t work out as expected. In a recent announcement, Barcelona president Joan Laporta revealed that Messi’s new deal would have affected the club for the next 50 years.
The reason Messi’s deal with Barca fell through is La Liga’s financial regulations. Although the club and the player have reached an agreement and have made their intentions to continue together crystal clear, the Spanish league’s restrictions made it impossible for it to be signed.
Salary cap
La Liga is hell-bent on fair play, and this includes the finances of the clubs. According to current regulations, introduced in 2013, the amount spent on salaries and signings could not exceed 70% of the clubs’ revenues. This wasn’t a problem for Barcelona in previous years, being one of the wealthiest football clubs in the world. Last year, in turn, the pandemic hit the club very hard, reducing its revenues to historic lows. And as such, it reduced its salary cap significantly.
In order to meet these requirements, Barcelona had to free up close to £150 million to be able to afford to sign Messi.
This year, in turn, the transfer activity was lower than usual, so offloading some expensive players to make room for Messi was not an option. And, considering the massive decrease in the revenues of the club last year – Barca is said to have over 1 billion euros in debt – caused its salary cap to decrease significantly compared to last year. This was one of the reason why so many have doubted that Messi will continue with Barcelona: the Catalan team has expressed interest in many young and talented players over the summer transfer window, and their signings would’ve been in doubt if the club would’ve signed the Argentine superstar. Even with his massive salary cut, it would’ve taken the club way too close to the limit – or maybe above it.
A PR stunt?
According to some voices, the ruckus around Messi’s return to Barcelona was just a PR stunt, and there was never real intention behind it. Apparently, Barcelona was never in the position to sign Messi – not with its budget limits. The goal here was, potentially, another: to shift the blame to La Liga.
According to some media sources, Barcelona’s management has waited this long to announce Messi’s forced departure from the club to be able to shift the fault for it to La Liga’s rules. The club is in for a great deal of fan backlash – after all, Messi was a key player at the club for almost two decades. This way, the club’s leadership can show the fans that they did their best to bring him back to the club, and they would’ve done it if it weren’t for the rules and regulations.
Messi has been out of the media’s attention since his contract expired in June. Recent speculations speak of his possible move to Paris Saint Germain but nothing is official just yet. The thing is, he has all the time in the world to find himself a new team: only players under contract are obligated to finish a transfer by the end of August. The only deadline he has to keep in mind is September 2 – it is the date by which teams have to register their rosters for the UEFA Champions League.
