Paris may be known as the city of love, but the relationship between Lionel Messi and the capital’s football club has hardly been passionate. After two seasons in the French championship, the seven-time Ballon d’Or is coming to the end of his contract with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), at the end of the 2022-2023 financial year. The match of the 38e Ligue 1 day against Clermont, Saturday June 3, at 9 p.m., at the Parc des Princes, will be his last with PSG, as confirmed by his coach, Christophe Galtier, Thursday 1is June. The club having decided not to extend the commitment of the Argentine world champion. The trace that the latter will leave in Paris will be that of a football genius on the decline. His passage also symbolizes the failure of a club which confuses sports policy and marketing.
The final break with Messi probably dates back to May 2. That day, the Parisian management decided to suspend its striker due to a trip to Saudi Arabia made without the club’s agreement. The day before, after a bitter home defeat against Lorient (1-3) in Ligue 1, Messi had missed training, preferring to fly to Riyadh to promote the Saudi Arabian tourist office, neighbor and rival of Qatar – owner of the club. On May 8, three days after he apologized to his teammates and the Parisian club on social media, Messi, soon to be 36, was back in training.
If the brief suspension – less than a week – of the native of Rosario had then confirmed the trend – a non-renewal of his contract in Paris -, the reason for the divorce is deeper. Beyond this episode, the two seasons of the superstar with the pharaonic contract (more than 30 million euros net, excluding bonuses) coincided with collective failures of PSG on the European scene.
“The biggest transfer window in the history of world football”
However, in the summer of 2021, when the signing of Messi in Paris was added to other big names (Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos, Georginio Wijnaldum, Achraf Hakimi…), the president of PSG, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, s was proud to have achieved “the biggest transfer window in the history of world football”. At the time, hundreds of supporters had even craned their feet at Le Bourget airport (Seine-Saint-Denis) or in front of the Parc des Princes to welcome the Argentinian phenomenon, who had not been able to extend his contract. at FC Barcelona, financially drained.
On paper, the Messi-Mbappé-Neymar attacking trio looked formidable, but the two coaches who succeeded each other at the head of the Parisian team, the Argentinian Mauricio Pochettino then the Frenchman Christophe Galtier, did not failed to transform this sum of individuals into a collective performance over time: the recurring evil of PSG.
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