If the contract states a specific date range then it’s open to appeal through Covid causing delays inevitably. If it says ‘End of the season for a period of 30 days’ or similar, then Barca are ****ed as they almost certainly won’t have notified him he had to leave back in June if he wanted to.
Initially they claimed it said June 10th, now they’ve claimed it was open ended in the final year of his contract. The letter his old man sent today has had a 2 line response from La Liga that says they’ve seen the contract and the clause doesn’t stand. It’s very odd, my money is on Messi’s old man having ****ed up over the clause tbh.
He’s not even worth the financial layout Like he’s the missing link for City in their CL pursuit City’s profile is big enough...they just lack euro success if I was a City fan I’d want that money spent on building another world class team and would be fuming if we chased this deal because of its ‘prestige’ value and nothing else.
Not quite how it works though eh, as contract law will eventually sort out this dispute if neither party backs down & there’s not a club who’s paying €700m for him at 33 anyway, so it’s a moot point.
Any deal would be about more than just City though. The Abu Dhabi’s have apparently put together a 5 year deal that would see him first play at City and then in the MLS. From their POV think of the increased TV and media exposure they’ll get for their Abu Dhabi Brands off the back of having the GOAT in their stable. The entire deal relies on him being on a free though, it remains to be seen whether they’d be prepared to pay a fee on top.
Interesting wording from him. Basically throwing them under bus saying they're refusing to let him leave by refusing to consider bids lower than his clause. Bit silly from Barca really. Despite reports saying otherwise I reckon a club would find £100m for a fee if they would agree that. Now they're paying the best part of a million quid a week to someone who doesn't want to play for them and who can sign for another team in less than 4 months. The Barca rebuild can't happen while he's there. The wages are crippling them.
His old man obvs ****ed up over the clause and this is them backing down without admitting they were bang wrong. He could still leave this window if Barca and Koeman decide they’d rather have him out of the club and off the wage bill for a fee.
Agreed that I think they've ****ed up. The way he's said things I think he's trying to put pressure on them to do a deal though. Not convinced that's the end of it at all.
Or the Messi’s were just talking absolute ****e, there’s always that option. Oh yeah it was that option
The guy comes across as a gormless mong to me. He's lucky he's good at footie overwise he'd be working at KFC.
