Lionel Messi beckoned to the Middle East – Kommersant

The intrigue surrounding Lionel Messi’s immediate future has become even more acute after it was reported that he had given preliminary consent to a move from PSG to Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal, who promised him a fantastic salary of more than €300 million. year. Previously, the contenders for the best football player in the world called Barcelona and the American Inter Miami.

At the beginning of this week, Lionel Messi was back in the spotlight for two reasons. One of them is another valuable award he received. At the annual Laureus ceremony (this is the sports analogue of the cinematic Oscar), the Argentinean was awarded the prize as the best athlete of last year – the one that accounted for his spectacular triumph at the World Championships in Qatar. Another reason, however, eclipsed this one in terms of resonance.

AFP, citing its own source, said that the deal of 35-year-old Lionel Messi with Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal is “completed” and only “a number of details” remain to be settled. The source made it clear that the salary offered to him, which is “giant”, played a decisive role in the choice of Messi. Later this information was confirmed by other media resources, such as L’Equipe, AP And RMS Sport.

Talking about the financial incentives underlying the likely transition, publications most often cite figures from €300 million to €363 million – how much Al-Hilal is allegedly willing to pay Messi on a two-year contract per year.

In fact, “giant” is too modest a definition for this amount. It is about ten times more than the current salary of the Argentine at PSG and more than one and a half times more than the one that forced at the end of last year to leave Europe for Saudi Arabia, who once competed on an equal footing with Lionel Messi in the fight for the unofficial status of the best football player of the current century. Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo. Most sources are sure that Ronaldo’s contract with the An-Nasr club, whose main competitor is Al-Hilal, implies an annual income of €200 million.

An interlocutor of RMC Sport surrounded by Lionel Messi specified that the player would make the final decision on moving to Saudi Arabia after the end of the season. The French championship finishes on June 3. League leaders PSG have four more games to play.

Until May, the intrigue associated with the future of Lionel Messi looked somewhat simpler. French and Spanish publications had no doubt that he would leave PSG, where he moved from Barcelona, ​​which was in crisis at that time, in 2021, either return to his native Catalan club, or opt for the American Inter Miami: its owner, the famous former English football player David Beckham, a good friend of Messi.

Everything was complicated by the state of emergency of a week ago. PSG suspended its brightest star for two weeks, denying the seven-time winner of the Golden Ball the right to even train with the team during this period (the other day, sanctions were lifted from him ahead of schedule).

The reason for such a sharp reaction of the leadership of the Parisians was the visit of Messi, accompanied by members of his family, to Saudi Arabia, which was not coordinated with him. Formally, it took place within the framework of the Argentinean’s agreement with the country’s Ministry of Tourism, according to which he assumed the functions of the state’s tourism ambassador. But various French sources suspected that Lionel Messi was dealing with his own professional issues during his visit.

Meanwhile, RMC Sport and some Spanish sports websites drew attention to the fact that at the Laureus ceremony, Messi and his wife Antonella talked for a long time with the Barcelona forward Robert Lewandowski invited to it, asking him, in particular, about the situation and atmosphere in the Catalan club. From this, they concluded that the Barcelona option, despite the charms of the Saudi proposal, Messi has not yet thrown into a landfill.

Alexey Dospekhov