PSG are in a right old Messi as he moves closer to facing Cristiano Ronaldo in a riotously expensive publicity stunt
PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN are truly in a Messi over the world’s greatest player.
All that money paid by PSG owners and now faced with the prospect that rival oil state Saudi Arabia could grab him for a reputed £522million contract.
So PSG are on the brink of Lionel’s labours lost. And they will be lost to competitive European football, to a team who play in the modest Saudi Pro-League.
Should Messi choose desert sands rather than the delights of Paris, Milan or perhaps some other city yet to be leaked to reporters, the rematch in Riyadh of the Argentinian star and the wilful Ronaldo, paid the paltry sum by comparison of £174m a year by Al Nassr, will be on the Saudi capital’s agenda.
No doubt it would be sold in Saudi as big as the World Cup held in Qatar last November.
Saudi royal sheikhs were not delighted by Qatar’s successful selling of Fifa’s controversial choice of country, which was soon reported to be brutally using a human resource of workers from the Indian sub-continent.
But the possibility of a rerun or two of the highly publicised Ronaldo-Messi match-ups must have given irritated Saudi sheikhs a taste of retribution which seems to be, perhaps like their popular testicle soup, best eaten cold.
Whether two 35-plus players taking part in what amounts to a riotously expensive publicity stunt rather than a thrilling football occasion owes any significant passing attraction to gushing oil wells rather than public demand.
Old champions and repeated Ballon d’Or winners don’t die, they only fade away.
The major losers so far are PSG, whose own pursuit of a Champions League title has been as frustrating as Frank Bruno’s was for the world heavyweight belt.
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Initially, PSG’s Qatari owners must have believed that the acquisition of Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, arguably then the three best attacking players in the world, were a guarantee of becoming European champions.
Too much of a good thing maybe or even that they should have been purchasing better defenders, but the guarantee wasn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on.
Now Neymar is on his way somewhere, maybe the Premier League. That Messi, captain of the world champions, visited Saudi recently as part of a promotional trip — upsetting PSG’s owners, who banned and fined him for his two-day jolly — suggests a transfer move rather than chats about selling the country’s tourist potential.
Anyway, Neymar was determined to take his ball control and not-so-controlled moods elsewhere.
And by all accounts so is Messi for probably the last move of his magnificent career.
Mbappe might well remain in the French capital, although he tends to be difficult to predict.
Qatari citizens are also in a long financial wrestle with Brit Sir Jim Ratcliffe to pay multi-billions to the Glazers, who intend to make a last killing at Manchester United before hightailin’ it back to the US.
All of which makes me wonder how wise it is to allow the citizens of one country to buy control of two major European clubs.
United’s potential owners, like those at Newcastle, claim that they are totally separate elements but questions remain.
These would be very pointed should United be paired with PSG in a future Champions League.
My take on it all is that Fifa and Uefa should consider whether fair play and fair purchase should feature in fresh legislation.