***Official*** English Football Season 2020-21

[dontcloseyoureyes]

That's the main issue here. He has a clause that he can activate at the end of every season, and that's what he's attempted to do. But Barca are arguing that it expired in June, when the season was scheduled to end. I can't imagine Messi would have attempted to activate it without taking legal counsel first but who knows.

If we did end up paying a fee I'd imagine it would be in the range of 100m, or 80ish plus Garcia or something.

I really don't see any situation where Barca hold him hostage. It's public suicide, the man has given everything to the club and more. If he genuinely wants to leave then you have to let him go.

 

[duffer]

Without Messi they're nothing right now. They'll fight this.

 

[Spark]

Without Messi they're nothing right now. They'll fight this.

Scorching hot take but maybe that's actually exactly what they need to become -- bottom out and rebuild from the ground out rather than having him paper over all the cracks.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Scorching hot take but maybe that's actually exactly what they need to become -- bottom out and rebuild from the ground out rather than having him paper over all the cracks.

Worked for Juventus

 

[Uppercut]

Scorching hot take but maybe that's actually exactly what they need to become -- bottom out and rebuild from the ground out rather than having him paper over all the cracks.

I don’t think losing Messi makes the rebuild that much easier. I don't have much time for the "is Messi actually the problem...?" takes. Barca's recruitment over the last six or seven years has been the worst of any superclub and without Messi they'd now be in the position of United or AC Milan. Sometimes people act like the club is full of competent directors and operators who would be doing a perfectly good job of running the club if they weren't constantly being overruled by Messi. That's pretty obviously not the case.

All that said, given that their squad situation forces them to focus on the medium and long term, selling him for a fee now is clearly better than losing him for nothing next year.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Without Messi they're nothing right now. They'll fight this.

They might fight him on his ability to leave for free, but they won't stop him from leaving by pricing us out. You cannot hold the greatest player in history hostage and hope to get away with it. The Catalan Cartel would crucify the club.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Not my own words, but this sums it up pretty well:

The Webster ruling allows any player over the age of 28 more than 2 years into a contract to buyout their contract by paying the value of the remaining wages. €70m in this case.

So if a court decided that Messi wasn't a free agent and City now owed Barcelona a fee, they could just say they were going to use the Webster ruling and pay no more than €70m. They could do that without actually using the Webster ruling that all clubs have avoided as its a sort of mutually assured destruction to bring it into play.

Or Messi could go to the Spanish department of Labour and start a legal proceeding where the government sets a realistic fair buyout clause- this is designed to protect workers from employers trapping them.

One thing is certain, City will never face paying €700m.

Barcelona's position is incredibly weak even if they have the bollocks to hold their greatest ever player to ransom.

Remember that Bartomeu and the board actually hired a PR company to lead attacks on Messi and wife on social media. Just imagine the amount of dirty laundry Messi could unleash if Bartomeu holds him hostage, if he just decided to publicly say Bartomeu was the reason he's leaving then the bloke would never be able to set foot in Barcelona again in his life.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Remember that Bartomeu and the board actually hired a PR company to lead attacks on Messi and wife on social media.

I'd heard about this but was it a credible report? It's almost Colangelo level ridiculous

 

[Spark]

I don’t think losing Messi makes the rebuild that much easier. I don't have much time for the "is Messi actually the problem...?" takes. Barca's recruitment over the last six or seven years has been the worst of any superclub and without Messi they'd now be in the position of United or AC Milan. Sometimes people act like the club is full of competent directors and operators who would be doing a perfectly good job of running the club if they weren't constantly being overruled by Messi. That's pretty obviously not the case.

All that said, given that their squad situation forces them to focus on the medium and long term, selling him for a fee now is clearly better than losing him for nothing next year.

Yeah I’m definitely not saying Messi was the problem. It’s just that Messi being Messi could have allowed the directors to hide behind his performances, so to speak. Clearly he’s not interested in allowing that to happen.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah I’m definitely not saying Messi was the problem. It’s just that Messi being Messi could have allowed the directors to hide behind his performances, so to speak. Clearly he’s not interested in allowing that to happen.

That’s been happening for years, but again it sort of implies that without Messi the obvious need for significant changes would have forced them into getting it together. But it doesn’t really work like that. When United lost Ferguson, an even bigger crack-paperer, they just became really bad at football. That’s what probably would have happened/ will happen at Barca. They’ve already lost Neymar and it only made their decisions worse.

 

[andruid]

Koeman doing well, in the job a week and he has told Suarez to get lost and Messi has handed in a transfer request.

It's his Valencia job all over again.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Celtic exit the Champions League even earlier than usual.

 

[andruid]

Having taken advantage of Wigan, Leeds seem to have also cashed in on the fire sale at Valencia. Apparently, back in January, they refused a 50 million bid, from Barcelona for Rodrigo.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Paul Pogba has the virus.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

First positive thing he has done since the world cup.

 

[duffer]

Heh

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Update

We are pleased to announce that due to new blood being introduced to Forever Bury one person in particular a successful businessman, a dialogue has commenced that should have started 20 months ago when Bury FC needed solidarity, I'm advised Forever Bury were duped by persons involved at the time whi

www.buryfc.co.uk

This is old but there are a lot of terribly run clubs in the fourth division huh.

 

[GIMH]

It's not old, only from today. And well they aren't in any division. But indeed

 

[Furball]

Celtic exit the Champions League even earlier than usual.

Their left back was in Europe for longer.

 

[wpdavid]

So Palace have signed QPR's Eze. Not someone I know a huge amount about, but apparently he played in the number 10 role for QPR and scored 14 goals last year. In other news, Zaha's desire to move on isn't exactly a surprise, but I still don't see one of the big clubs being interested. Perhaps moving on to a higher level will mean he'll be at Everton or Newcastle next season.