Member-only story
Precious diamond for sale. One careful owner.
Can Barcelona create power to sell Messi now instead of a free transfer in June?
Precious diamonds are rare. In football none are rarer than Lionel Messi. He’s for sale this summer for the first time ever. He’ll be contract free, so can choose his destination. No transfer fee means more money to pay him, and his agent. Lucky them.
He’ll be 34 next summer, past his peak perhaps but 34 is the new 28. For some. Ronaldo, two years older, has shown age is just a number if you are fit, hungry and special enough. Messi is still special, fit and hungry enough due partly to Ronaldo, and their GOAT tussle.
Could he have sold for €100mn, € 150mn or beyond Neymar’s record €222mn? Ronaldo went for €112mn at 33, but that’s no benchmark. ‘Scientific algorithm’ predictors of transfer values don’t help here. Messi’s is impossible to predict because he plays on a different plane. Such beauty, such magic. Like an exceptional Van Gogh.
How do you value such sublime, quixotic yet effective talent on the pitch? On the training ground? How many shirts will he sell? How many new global supporters will his signing bring? We may never know the transfer spreadsheet calculation of a PSG or City. They will only pay sign-on fees and inflated wages.
