Paris Saint-Germain’s gamers have been nonetheless reeling from a stunning defeat to Lorient once they turned as much as apply on Monday, solely to search out that the world’s finest soccer participant hadn’t bothered to affix them.
Lionel Messi, it turned out, was 1000’s of miles away in Saudi Arabia finishing up his duties for the Saudi Tourism Authority, which pays him a reported $30 million a yr to function a public ambassador for the Kingdom. PSG, the membership that pays him round $40 million a yr to assist it win trophies and promote jerseys, had no concept he’d made the journey.
So on Tuesday, the membership made an instance of the world’s finest participant and suspended him for 2 weeks for the unauthorized jaunt to the Gulf.
Messi’s camp insists he traveled with the membership’s permission. Regardless, the suspension means he’ll solely be out there for 3 extra video games this season as PSG clings to first place within the French league.
As relations bitter between the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner and one of many world’s richest soccer groups, it appears more and more possible that these shall be his ultimate three video games for Paris. Stories in France recommend that PSG has misplaced curiosity in re-signing the 35-year-old for a 3rd season right here, marking the tip to one of many strangest spells in fashionable soccer historical past.
Information of the suspension first emerged in L’Equipe, the French sports activities day by day. The headline on the entrance web page learn merely: “The Breakup.” PSG didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.
For all of the fanfare that accompanied Messi’s arrival in Paris from Barcelona, because the Qatar-backed membership acquired the best participant of his technology, his time in France has been deeply unremarkable. Messi has failed to guide PSG to the coveted Champions League title it has spent greater than a decade and $2 billion making an attempt to seize, regardless of being flanked by the Brazilian playmaker Neymar and French celebrity Kylian Mbappé. Extra alarming, he has typically seemed checked out and disinterested—even PSG’s followers have booed him on multiple event throughout his two seasons right here.
“He took the jeering very onerous,” PSG head coach Christophe Galtier mentioned earlier this yr in Messi’s protection.
The scenario solely received worse over the winter after Messi lifted the World Cup with Argentina in December. It was the one title that had eluded him by way of his staggering profession. And as soon as he had it, little else appeared to matter. Recent from his storybook event—and a prolonged break—Messi finally returned to PSG in January as a person with nothing left to show within the recreation. His indifference was onerous to overlook. PSG was quickly drummed out of the Champions League and French Cup. The membership is now limping to the end line in Ligue 1, the place it has misplaced two of its previous 5 matches and seen its benefit over second-placed Olympique Marseille shrink to 5 factors.
That cushion would usually be sufficient with simply 5 matches remaining on the schedule, however for the subsequent couple of weeks, PSG should hold onto it with out Messi’s assist.
“The gamers need to get one thing going,” Galtier, whose personal future is up within the air, mentioned after the 3-1 defeat to Lorient. “There are too many gamers performing under their stage.”
The scenario has shades of the ugly finish to Cristiano Ronaldo’s time at Manchester United earlier this season. The 2 gamers have been linked by otherworldly soccer greatness for greater than a decade, however the twilight of their respective careers is taking more and more weird turns.
Ronaldo’s public divorce with United got here proper at the beginning of the World Cup, when he appeared on British TV to vent his frustration about changing into a highly-paid substitute. United successfully terminated his contract and left Ronaldo trying to find any membership that might assure each enjoying time and the astronomical wage Ronaldo felt he nonetheless deserved at age 38.
The one suitor ready to fulfill each circumstances turned out to be Al-Nassr within the Saudi skilled league, which made him the best paid athlete anyplace on the earth with a contract value round $200 million a yr in January. Since then, Ronaldo has been banging in objectives all around the Kingdom, regardless of loads of frustration with the usual of the league.
Now, as Messi seems to move for the exit at PSG, he could also be taking a look at the same panorama. Rumors have floated that he may be part of David Beckham’s Main League Soccer undertaking at Inter Miami. However no MLS membership may ever match the phrases of a proposal from Saudi, the place Messi’s enterprise ties are already on full show.
He has appeared in adverts for Go to Saudi since late final yr and maintains a friendship with Turki al-Sheikh, a former political enforcer of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who was instrumental to securing Ronaldo’s signature. Earlier this season, Messi additionally starred in a PSG exhibition recreation orchestrated by Sheikh in Riyadh in opposition to an all-star group constructed round Ronaldo.
Since then, Saudi followers and soccer officers haven’t been shy about saying they’d welcome him with open arms. Any time rival supporters need to taunt Ronaldo within the Kingdom, they’ve only one go-to chant: “Messi, Messi.”
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