JAVIER TEBAS is shocked that Barcelona haven’t received any bids for free agent Lionel Messi.
Despite several major European clubs, including Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, declaring their interest in the Argentinian mega-star, none of them made a concrete offer.
This comes as a huge surprise to Tebas, who thought the 34-year-old would’ve been swamped with options by now.
He told Marca: “Right now I can only give my opinion, and that is that it is odd that there has been no offer [for Messi] from Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain.
“And I firmly believe there isn’t and that the player wants to stay.”
Messi’s been out of contract since his previous deal expired at the end of last month.
Financial implications caused by Covid-19 and a strict wage bill set by LaLiga chiefs has meant Barca can’t match Messi’s salary demands.
And although Tebas wants the six-time Ballon d’Or winner to remain at the Nou Camp, he refuses to bend the rules to accommodate Messi.
He added: “No, I won’t [turn a blind eye] for Messi, it’s impossible.
“There are many workers [at LaLiga] and in the economic control [department] as well.
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“This is a right that the clubs have and we have to safeguard the integrity of LaLiga.
“We often have to explain [the economic controls] to agents and players because they don’t know about it or think clubs are deceiving them, and we’ve had to explain it in recent years.
“We’ll have to analyse everything properly, because if there are dismissals for economic reasons but then they bring in Messi and others…we’d have to look into that.”
The Spanish top-tier’s chief previously stated that the LaLiga would do just fine if Messi decided to leave the country.
He pointed to Neymar’s departure to PSG and Cristiano Ronaldo’s switch to Juventus as evidence of this.
Tebas said: “Of course we want Messi to stay but when you are running a league you cannot base decisions on individual players or clubs.’
“Ronaldo and Neymar went and we are still here and neither Serie A nor Ligue 1 has grown as they thought it would.
“Economically the Premier League is the best competition in the world and it has done it without Ballon d’Or winners.”
But it may not get to that point with Messi as reports claim the attacker is willing to slash his slash his pay by half, to around £1.2million-a-week from £2.4m.
The Copa America winner has decided to take the dramatic wage cut to help alleviate Barca’s cash issues, according to Sport.
It’s a far cry from his old contract which was reportedly worth just shy of £500m and was the biggest in sporting history.
The whopping figure was a combination of image rights and a host of other variables that saw him pick up on average up to £123m per year with all the bonuses included.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
