{"id":10677,"date":"2021-08-10T19:25:07","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T13:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=135808"},"modified":"2021-08-10T19:25:07","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T13:55:07","slug":"lionel-messi-signs-for-paris-saint-germain-until-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/football\/lionel-messi-signs-for-paris-saint-germain-until-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi signs for Paris Saint Germain until 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PSG have officially announced the signing of Lionel Messi. Fans have qued outside the Paris airport to get a first-time glimpse of the little magician on their soil.<\/p>\n<p>Lionel Messi has now officially finalized as a Paris Saint-Germain player after flying to the French capital\u00a0ending his career-long association with Barcelona.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u2026and here\u2019s Leo Messi on the plane together with his wife Antonela, rumbo a Paris. Time to have medical and sign as new PSG player. \u2708\ufe0f\ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Messi?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Messi<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/PSG?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#PSG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Historical day. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cOrK1Aej1f\">pic.twitter.com\/cOrK1Aej1f<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1425064110690082825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 10, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier today, the Argentine had agreed to a 2-year long contract with PSG with an option to extend until the month of June 2024. He is set to be earning around 35 million euros with add-ons as per reports from the Italian transfer expert <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fabrizio Romano. <\/span>Messi leaves Barcelona as their record all-time top goalscorer with 682 goals in all competitions since joining them in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>He shall be joining his fellow Argentinians Angel Di Maria, Mauro Icardi and Leandro Paredes as well as the former Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino. He will be reunited with his former Barcelona compatriot Neymar Jr. since his departure in 2017 for a world-record fee of 222 euros.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 34-year old leaves his boyhood club and the only club he has played for until now due to Barcelona being unable to afford a new deal under La Liga\u2019s financial fair play rules. <\/span><span>There were several attempts that had been made to renew Messi\u2019s contract when Barcelona\u2019s on-field performances didn\u2019t go as planned. Messi even made it clear in his farewell speech on the 8th of August stating <\/span><span>\u201c Last year I didn\u2019t want to stay, and I said it\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Messi had shared a bitter relationship with the former club president Josep Bartomeu until Joan Laporta took over on the 17th of March 2021. This changed the decision of the Argentine and committed his future to Barcelona. <\/span>On the 1st of July, Messi\u2019s contract had officially expired making him a free agent. This was not an issue back then as there was a verbal agreement between both parties as the club were formalising a new contract for their star man.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On August 5th, Barcelona broke the news that Messi will not be continuing with the club.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">LOOK: Fans waited outside the Camp Nou stadium where Lionel Messi held a press conference on Sunday, Aug. 8. <\/p>\n<p>The Argentinian superstar fought back tears as he confirmed he is leaving Barcelona, where he has played his entire career. | \ud83d\udcf8: AFP<\/p>\n<p>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/de2gh99mPF\">https:\/\/t.co\/de2gh99mPF<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/t8CTbPNfrS\">pic.twitter.com\/t8CTbPNfrS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/inquirerdotnet\/status\/1424716575886565379?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 9, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cLeo wanted to stay and the club wanted him to stay, but with the La Liga rules it has not been possible.\u201d said the club president Joan Laporta<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Due to Barcelona being in huge debt, they could not afford to re-sign the forward even if he played for free. Laporta explained that with Messi on board, the club\u2019s wage-to-turnover percentage would be 110 per cent and without him, it would be 95 per cent which is still well above the Financial Fair PLay cut off mark leading to the departure of the six-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I'm not even a Barca fan and I almost cried watching this. I can't fathom their feelings now, losing this immortal on the pitch is irreplaceable. It's truly a major thing in football\u2026Messi leaving Barca.<br \/>The beautiful game is bittersweet\ud83d\ude2a. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oAQKJVS3v3\">https:\/\/t.co\/oAQKJVS3v3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Fakoli's Heir \ud835\udd4f (@Kamanda_Koroma_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Kamanda_Koroma_\/status\/1423402222239555587?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 5, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lionel Messi was given the stage to bid farewell to his teammates, the club and their fans.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe had everything agreed, but at the last minute, it couldn\u2019t happen. This year I wanted to stay and I couldn\u2019t,\u201d said Messi<\/span><\/p>\n<p>After a brilliant transfer market for PSG, they now have the addition of Lionel who will now be seen in the blue and red strip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi has officially signed for the mighty Paris Saint-Germain on a 2-year long contract deal until 2023 with an option to extend by a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":33154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2286,697,487,447,169,3562],"class_list":["post-10677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-barcelona-fc","tag-ligue-1","tag-lionel-messi","tag-psg","tag-trending","tag-twitter"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}