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Should Barca sell Messi as they rebuild?

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tomasjj

tomasjj

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Simple question really, should Barcelona sell Messi now that they have to rebuild?

I think so.
Players sometimes get too powerful and dictate too much of club decisions.
Also he is now 33 years old.
Perhaps financially, it won't fetch a massive fee to cover the economic losses all across the board, but the overall benefits should become visible as the rebuilding progresses.

They have actually slept at the wheel, and the clear out is much overdue.
Their recruitment have been spotty, to say the least, and several others should also be shown the door.
 
I think it might be a moot point if the reports are correct that Messi has already informed the club of his decision to leave. But to your question – no, I think Messi is by far the best thing about that rotten club. And I think he now wishes he had wielded more of his power and did it far earlier and more decisively to prevent Bartomeu and the board from running the club into the ground. His brilliance on the pitch gave cover to their bad decisions, but after a few years of bad decisions in a row even Messi cannot carry that clusterfuck of a team any more. If he leaves, Barca will enter a long period of obscurity and rebuilding like AC Milan or Arsenal.
 
Yes, the president, or whatever decision making structure they have, should clearly be fucked off.

But he is getting on, and I think the period of rebuilding might be prolonged by him staying.
I don't think you have a player wielding so much power in a club.
It ruins the whole organisation.
 
He is still hitting 30 plus goals and 25 assists. He is a huge financial cost to Barcelona due to his wages of 1.3 million euros.

But if you look at Barcelona's other player's wages. Griezman nearly 900,000 per week; De Jong 400,000 per week; Busquets nearly 300,000 per week; Rakitic, Pique, Dembele, Umtiti close to 250,000 per week; Sergi Roberto close to 200,000 per week.

Did he sanction all those outlandish salaries? Did he push for Griezman and Coutinho purchases with no plan to play them?

And the transfer fees, Neto: 26 million for a backup goalkeeper? Is it his fault that incredibly talented attackers like Griezman, Coutinho, and midfielders like De Jong look like shit once they land there due to a lack of a plan on how to use them? Post the purchase of Suarez, Barca's transfer activity has to be among the worst there is.

https://fcbarcelonalatestnews.com/fc-barcelona-players-wages/
 
peekay said:
He is still hitting 30 plus goals and 25 assists. He is a huge financial cost to Barcelona due to his wages of 1.3 million euros.

But if you look at Barcelona's other player's wages. Griezman nearly 900,000 per week; De Jong 400,000 per week; Busquets nearly 300,000 per week; Rakitic, Pique, Dembele, Umtiti close to 250,000 per week; Sergi Roberto close to 200,000 per week.

Did he sanction all those outlandish salaries? Did he push for Griezman and Coutinho purchases with no plan to play them?

And the transfer fees, Neto: 26 million for a backup goalkeeper? Is it his fault that incredibly talented attackers like Griezman, Coutinho, and midfielders like De Jong look like shit once they land there due to a lack of a plan on how to use them? Post the purchase of Suarez, Barca's transfer activity has to be among the worst there is.

https://fcbarcelonalatestnews.com/fc-barcelona-players-wages/
Click to expand...

It think we misunderstand each other.
I am not laying the blame for the club fuck ups at Messi's feet.
I am simply saying a player holding much power, poisons the structure of the club, irrespective of how shite the board, president and whatever is.

It seems they are rotten at the core, and with the wages and purchases you point to, much work needs to be done.
This will take years.
 
I think there is / has been far too much player power in general at Barca. It's one of the things Pep had to contend with when he came in.

It's hard to discuss meaningfully without knowing all the ins and outs but my guess is that Messi's power is overstated. He's had to reluctantly publicly kinda protest this portrayal in the past (during the Abidal saga perhaps?).

As has been said by Rurik, I don't think Messi is the problem. The corrupt and completely shit management has been the problem.

There should have been a plan in place long ago to squeeze every last drop out of Messi's last years whilst succession planning. Instead, they've flapped about wasting vast sums of money. The whole Neymar saga really threw them for a loop but you've got to deal with situations like that.

There isn't even a financial argument for selling Messi given that the likes of Pique, Busquets and Suarez are all on massive contracts and probably won't leave / find suitors. Why sell Messi and keep them?

Unfortunately for them, they're just going to have to wait it out.
 
Also, I read that Bartomeu has helpfully publicly declared which players he considers "nontransferable". All about optics.
 
tomasjj said:
It think we misunderstand each other.
I am not laying the blame for the club fuck ups at Messi's feet.
I am simply saying a player holding much power, poisons the structure of the club, irrespective of how shite the board, president and whatever is.

It seems they are rotten at the core, and with the wages and purchases you point to, much work needs to be done.
This will take years.
Click to expand...

But is there evidence or even rumors that Messi's presence is harmful. As Keni pointed out, we will never know that.

The one thing is that on the pitch all the attacks run through him. While he has been delivering on goals and assists, he is appearing a bit mortal nowadays. So teams in the later stages of the champions league are able to neutralize him.

But without him, I will be surprised if they qualify for the champions league next year. Especially with Koeman as the manager.
 
Koeman is essentially a mid-table manager. Yes, he did well for Holland recently, but national team football is kind of irrelevant and his club football CV reads thus:

Vitesse
Ajax
Benfica
PSV
Valencia
AZ
Feyenoord
Southampton
Everton
Barcelona

Without Messi, he's almost certainly going to bring Barca down to that level, not lift them up to competing with the likes of Munich any time soon. Squad-wise they are light years behind with terrible age profile, no semblance of a cohesive style after chopping and changing managers, lots of players with disciplinary and attitude problems and almost no saleable assets to help them rebuild.

Bartomeu knows that Messi is completely fed up with his leadership and what does he do? Tells Abidal to fire the manager, next day fires Abidal, then chooses a "club legend" to buy him some more time rather than a top manager who could possibly revitalize the club (but would also demand the end to the culture of incompetence around him). Oh, and announces that the elections will not be moved up, as if there is no crisis. It's pathetic and I think he will ultimately succeed in pushing Messi out of the club and plunging it deep into mediocrity.
 
Last edited:
rurikbird said:
Bartomeu knows that Messi is completely fed up with his leadership and what does he do? Tells Abidal to fire the manager, next day fires Abidal, then chooses a "club legend" to buy him some more time rather than a top manager who could possibly revitalize the club (but would also demand the end to the culture of incompetence around him). Oh, and announces that the elections will not be moved up, as if there is no crisis. It's pathetic and I think he will ultimately succeed in pushing Messi out of the club and plunging it deep into mediocrity.
Click to expand...

They should've moved the election up. It would seem that Xavi is the preferred choice for the leading candidates so Koeman is that temporary "safe pair of hands" - good thing they gave him a two year deal instead of one then!

I know it's Koeman's dream job but he really should've stayed where he was.
 
Getting rid of Messi makes no sense on any level.

He's still the best player in the world.

They won't really get a transfer fee.

The team depends on him.

I doubt he's a poisonous, negative influence behind the scenes.

They need to rebuild and slowly, gradually phase out their reliance on him, while still relying on his otherworldly quality from time to time to mitigate that transition.

Their recruitment has been fucking horrendous for the last 5/6 years. That's not Messi's fault.
 
Graham Hunter was saying that Koeman will only get a year as the president elect wants Xavi next summer. So do they back Koeman with any transfers this window at all? It looks like they'll be a shambles for a year or two yet.
 
There are mixed reports about this clause that allows Messi to go for free whilst still under contract. I read somewhere that it only applies if it's to a club outside Europe. It has also been reported that this clause has expired anyway.

It's a bizarre clause anyway and is unlikely to be straightforward.

That said, with only a year left even Messi would command only a knock down fee if he left.

Whether it would be wise for Barcelona to get rid, I am not sure. He is still doing the business, but if the club does need to massively rebuild (unlike others here, I admit I don't know so much about Barcelona), doing so around a player his age may not be sensible, unless he is happy with a gradually reduced role in a few years.

The ideal for them would be to get him on a new contract and phase him out whilst bringing other players through. He obviously may not be too happy with this plan though.
 
tomasjj said:
Yes, the president, or whatever decision making structure they have, should clearly be fucked off.

But he is getting on, and I think the period of rebuilding might be prolonged by him staying.
I don't think you have a player wielding so much power in a club.
It ruins the whole organisation.
Click to expand...
Do you see his stats last season ?! He's got 2-3 seasons left in him and Barca should use those to rebuild - with him in the team to help the transition. They are dead in the water without his goals & assists.
 
keniget said:
Ronaldo never got that did he?

Not just him though... rest of the team seem to be on mad money too.
Click to expand...

Ronaldo would have got a sell on fee every time he transferred. Messi's "loyalty" would have given him the leverage to ask for a comparable fee paid to him as wages.

https://futballnews.com/cristiano-ronaldo-weekly-salary-and-wages-history/

When Ronaldo was in Madrid, he was no doubt one of the highest paid players in the world. As at 2016, Ronaldo was said to be earning a whopping sum of £365,000 a week before bonuses. The competition between him and his rival star, Lionel Messi is not only on the pitch of play. The duo stars compete even for the biggest earner and the richest player spot respectively.

However, while many may consider that Ronaldo has fallen from the ladder of highest earners simply because he went to Juventus, it would interest you to know that the Portugal captain is the highest earner in Italy. Ronaldo’s contract in Juventus allow him to earn about $34m/£26, this means by far, CR7 is the highest earner in Italy. Moreso, his contract will run for four years, expectedly, the star player will posed to make a total of about €120m for all his huddle in Italy.
 
He’s coming to Anfield that’s why we turned away Werner etc etc either that or he’s going to China PSG or citeh.
 
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