The question of whether Lionel Messi will stay at Barcelona or whether he will go continues to dominate the daily headlines.
The Argentinian has repeatedly said that he won’t make a decision until the end of the season, although it’s a fair bet that conversations will be going on behind the scenes to ensure that any deal, whomever it is with, is done well before transfer deadline day.
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A new Barcelona president will be elected on March 7 and depending whom that is, there’s a chance that Messi will stay put at the Camp Nou, albeit, one would suspect, on greatly reduced salary terms.
If money, rather than getting Barca back to where they should be, is his prime motivator, then both Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain will be monitoring events closely.
So too will Real Madrid, although not for the reason that they want to poach their rival’s best-ever player.
Their focus remans on Kylian Mbappe, and as MARCA note, if the Parisien side are successful in acquiring the Argentinian’s services, then there’s little chance of them being able to afford to keep both players and Neymar in the same side.
That would give Los Blancos an advantage in negotiations for Mbappe, but this will only occur if Messi starts off the domino effect.
Interesting