I may not be using that correctly..
Regardless, the unthinkable has happened. No culé ever imagined it would end like this. Sure, we all knew it would at some point, but in the claret and blue, at Camp Nou, in one of the biggest celebrations the cavernous stadium has ever seen. Alas, it was not to be.
Messi has left FC Barçelona.
He was offered a new contract, but there was no way he could be paid without breaking some major La Liga financial rules. So now he’s a whatever they’re called over at Paris Saint Germain. Our beloved Pulga Atomico has become part of the decade-long trophy hunt the oil Barrons of Arabia owners of PSG are only happy to continue, despite their crowning achievement in Europe so far has been Champions League runners up.
As upsetting as that is, worse yet is the reasons why Barça couldn’t afford to pay Messi’s contract. The unbelievable incompetence with which the previous boards of directors ran the club has finally reared its ugly head in earnest; the club’s debts have reached into billions of euros, and the Laporta, the prodigal club president, has shown a surprising willingness to continue that disastrous trait this summer, by signing new expensive players without having money to pay them. Last week, just before the first game of the season, Gerard Pique took a pay cut so the new players could be registered and play, proving the club means more than a contract to quite a few players.
Ironically, the financial mismanagement reached its peak a few years ago when PSG forked over Neymar’s 223 million euro release clause to Barça and took his whiny, tantrum-throwing butt to Paris. At the time, Barça was in negotiations with Broussard Dortmund to buy Dembele, and Dortmund, seeing the large wad of cash in Barça’s lap, and aware of the board’s desperation to please the fans, raised its price for young Ousman and wouldn’t budge. And Barça, suddenly having lost all leverage, buckled. Liverpool did the same with Couthinho, and all other clubs reacted to interest from Barça for their players the same way.
And Barça paid. And paid. And Paid.
And here we are. I can’t even be sure if Sergio Aguero, Messi’s best friend, will stay now that Leo’s gone. He won’t be ready to play for a few weeks, so we will see. Maybe Kidman will manage a miracle and present a competitive team this season. Maybe Laporta wakes up, changes course, and saves our beloved Barça as he promised during his election campaign. Maybe…
Oh hell, who knows. The way the world has been turned upside down and inside out recently, anything is possible.