Bonjour, Messi!

By Roman Rickwood, Sports Analyst

Perhaps the biggest news in recent European Football is the transfer of Lionel Messi. Last month, he transferred from Spain’s Barcelona to PSG in Paris, France.

This was a colossal move that rocked the European football world since Messi has been with Barcelona since the age of 13. At the age of 13 he left his home in Argentina to join Barcelona’s academy or farm system. Messi spent 21 years with Barcelona and made them consistently a dominant team in European football.

Although Barcelona was incredibly dominant on the field and was able to seemingly sign any player that it desired, Barcelona had management and financial problems. This, to me, was very surprising considering how marketable Team Barcelona should have been; after all, it was one of the most notable clubs in the world with–at one point–two out of the five best players in football, those being Messi and Neymar. Barcelona currently has 1.6 billion in debt due to poor management and bad financial moves made by the club’s president (apnews.com).

Messi said he had no desire to leave the club and offered to reduce his salary by 50% just to stay with the club (“Messi’s Farewell Press Conference”). A reduction in salary is incredibly rare for a player of Messi’s caliber; he made a statement to the world. It was a statement of loyalty and gratitude. When Barcelona could not keep him and follow LaLiga salary rules, Messi had no choice but to transfer and sign with PSG, the largest and most dominant club in France.

Messi played in Paris one week ago. The fans of Paris-Saint Germain are thrilled to get one of the world’s most famous players. Last week, PSG won, with Messi on the pitch, 2-0, against Reims.

In my opinion, this was one of the biggest moves in European football history. This was the first transfer that the world-famous Messi ever made, and it exposed the financial problems in one of the world’s most popular clubs.