L’Équipe report today that, with Lionel Messi’s departure being confirmed by Barcelona yesterday evening, contacts are ongoing between the six-time Ballon d’Or winner and Paris Saint-Germain.
The Argentine’s entourage has been speaking to Les Parisiens for the past few months, with Messi himself frequently speaking with former Barcelona team-mate Neymar and compatriot Ángel Di María.
The PSG management are aware that now is a fantastic opportunity to secure Messi’s services – not least with fifteen months to go until the Qatar World Cup.
Nevertheless, the transfer would be a complicated one, and having not been the ones to initiate the contact, Paris Saint-Germain are wary of being used. The Argentine’s arrival is judged to be “not realistic” within the club. The first reason for this is the financial cost of his signing – with Messi ready to cut his salary in half to stay in Catalonia, his wages would be set at around €80m/year.
PSG had earlier this summer presented their budget to French football’s financial regulator, the DNCG, which planned for losses of €250m to €300m. As such, the club is expected to make sales worth €180m to counter this – as of yet, though, the only sale to have gone through is Mitchel Bakker’s to Bayer Leverkusen for €7m.
With Achraf Hakimi’s arrival for €60m and the high wages of the likes of Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos and Georginio Wijnaldum to deal with, adding Lionel Messi to the equation would prove difficult for the club once the FFP accounts are due in a year’s time.
In addition, PSG’s current priority is renewing Kylian Mbappé’s contract, with the 22-year-old having one year left on his current deal.
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