He was on his way to Juve but that fell through due to passport issues, but Barca were 'happy to release him for free' He will only be on half of the 30m euros he was earning at Barca. What a ****ing mess they are in
What passport issues could he possibly have. He wants to stay in Spain close to his best mate who was supposed to be sorting it out for him to stay at Barcelona. Just guessing.
He hasn’t got a European passport, so he’d have taken Juve over their non Italian / EU player limit is how I understand it. So he needed to obtain an Italian passport. Not sure why he couldn’t have obtained a Spanish one tbh though, unless I’ve missed something.
I've read up on it now. Suarez's wife has an Italian passport so he could get citizenship by passing the test and then wouldn't need an EU passport. In Spain if your spouse has an EU passport that is enough for you to be considered an EU player. It's not the same in Italy.
Seems strange to be talking about passport issues for someone who's been playing in Europe for well over a decade, but them's the rules I s'pose.
Thanks to #brexit UK people will soon get to experience these convoluted rules for non-EU citizens first hand
i saw something suggesting they were going to pay 50% but i think that referred to the Juve deal and not sure they would ok that iro of AM - if it was true in the first place .
With the financial mess Barca are in, you'd have thought they'd have been happy to get Messi's half million a week off their books. Or do they make more than that in merchandise?
I think messi has them tied in knots with anything to do with him. Wages, merchandise, say in the club, he's got fingers in all of it. I doubt the full picture of how much hold over barca hes got will become clear until he retires.
I woud suggest, not alot at the very top, work permits would be fairly easy to attain much like they are for the South Americans, African, Asian etc that had to gain them. I suspect it would affect academy signing more than anything. Young European players would face the same challenge non-European players do, work permits. Remember Allan who we could never get a work permit for, it'll be more like that for young Euro players. Knock on affect could be less Fabergas (who was considered Home-grown for Arsenal) and Academy's/U18s sticking longer with British talents.
Arsenal and Ashton Villa games rescheduled. Arsenal game will now kick 0ff at 8pm on Monday 28 September. Aston Villa game will now kick off at 7:15 pm Sunday October 4