{"id":80798,"date":"2015-01-09T12:41:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T12:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=80798"},"modified":"2015-01-09T12:41:03","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T12:41:03","slug":"can-afford-lionel-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=80798","title":{"rendered":"Who can afford Lionel Messi?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only two clubs could buy Lionel Messi outright and satisfy Financial Fair Play, according to a finance expert.<\/p>\n

And Real Madrid and Manchester United would struggle to pay Messi’s wages without breaking Uefa’s rules.<\/p>\n

The rest of Europe’s elite would have to stagger a payment over a number of years to meet the \u00a3170m valuation.<\/p>\n

“With the revenue they generate and cash reserves, only United and Real Madrid could pay the fee,” said Rob Wilson of Sheffield Hallam University.<\/p>\n

“With salary costs probably even they couldn’t stay within FFP.”<\/p>\n

\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
World’s most valuable players<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Source: CIES Football Observatory (January, 2015)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tfoot>\n
220m Euros (\u00a3172.43m) Lionel Messi (Barcelona)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
133m Euros (\u00a3104.24m) Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
99m Euros (\u00a377.60m) Eden Hazard (Chelsea)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
84m Euros (\u00a365.84m) Diego Costa (Chelsea)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
72m Euros (\u00a356.43m) Paul Pogba (Juventus)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
65m Euros (\u00a350.95m) Sergio Aguero (Manchester City)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Messi’s contract does not expire until 2019 and Wilson said it would be unlikely that Barcelona would accept a staggered transfer payment.<\/p>\n

“Unless Messi absolutely wanted to get out of the club, why would Barcelona agree to that?<\/p>\n

“Staggering the payments would certainly make it easier for Chelsea, Manchester City, PSG and Bayern Munich but Manchester United demanded the fee up front when they sold Cristiano Ronaldo and I strongly suspect it would be the same for Messi,” Wilson said.<\/p>\n

There is no suggestion Real Madrid are interested in replicating the controversy created by their decision to sign Luis Figo from Barcelona in 2000.<\/p>\n

But Messi, 27, has been the subject of increasing speculation.<\/p>\n

He was left out of the Barcelona starting line-up for the defeat at Real Sociedad, subsequently began following Chelsea on Instagram and his future was the subject of a vague comment <\/span>\u00a0<\/span> by coach Luis Enrique.<\/p>\n

Yet the days when clubs merely had to decide whether they could afford a financial package for a player are over.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
World’s richest clubs (turnover)<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Source: Deloitte Football Money League (January, 2014)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tfoot>\n
\u00a3444.7m – Real Madrid<\/td>\n\u00a3271m – Manchester City<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a3413.6m – Barcelona<\/td>\n\u00a3260m – Chelsea<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a3369.6m – Bayern Munich<\/td>\n\u00a3243.6m – Arsenal<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a3363.2m – Manchester United<\/td>\n\u00a3233.5m – Juventus<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a3341.8m – Paris St Germain<\/td>\n\u00a3225.8m – AC Milan<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Now, under FFP, if they exceed losses of 30m Euros (\u00a323.5m) over a three-year period that includes the present campaign, they are liable to be sanctioned by Uefa.<\/p>\n

That figure is a reduction on the \u00a345m over three years that was in operation until last season, and which Manchester City and Paris St-Germain were fined \u00a349m for breaching last term.<\/p>\n

It means unless clubs took the radical step of selling a number of senior players to fund a single purchase, their only other option would be to push through the transfer and deal with the fall-out when it happened, a stance Wilson believes could prove very costly.<\/p>\n

“Chelsea and Manchester City clearly have the financial power but whether they would just do the deal and worry about the consequences afterwards is another matter,” said Wilson.<\/p>\n

“Most people thought Uefa would take a light touch approach to FFP. In fact they have shown a willingness to apply it pretty rigorously.”<\/p>\n

\"Lionel<\/p>\n

Lionel Messi scoring in the 2009 Champions League final against Manchester United<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Lionel<\/p>\n

Messi after Argentina’s World Cup final defeat by Germany last year<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Lionel<\/p>\n

Messi with his fourth Ballon d’Or in 2012<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only two clubs could buy Lionel Messi outright and satisfy Financial Fair Play, according to a finance expert. And Real Madrid and Manchester United would struggle to pay Messi’s wages without breaking Uefa’s rules. The rest of Europe’s elite would have to stagger a payment over a number of years to meet the \u00a3170m valuation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":80800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-80798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}