I posted this in the other thread but may help ease nerves in here too lol.
I don’t think those flapping are looking at this logically to be honest.
Bartomeu is liable for 25% of the clubs debt should he leave his position, with an election coming up and him likely to be ousted, he’s currently shitting bricks. He’s like a rabbit caught in the headlights having realised his cunning plan of cashing in on his prize assets has gone down the pan. Barça have clearly fucked up and are now backtracking faster than the Italians in a war. They have realised that Messi can indeed walk and have gone from the stance of the contracts wrong to now it being about employment law. They are straw clutching and now in a classic defensive mode hence all the bollocks they are spouting via their social media contacts or mouthpieces. In my opinion of course.
So what options are left for them? For Bartomeu? To be honest very little. He now needs some sort of reverse of fortune, he knows Messi can leave and he knows he’s up shit creek without a paddle. It’s now about saving face and himself a prison sentence if he can’t repay the 25% on his inevitable departure. Yes Messi can leave and it can go to court but does that do anyone any good? Barça look even bigger cunts and are toppled by MCFC, something they’ll not want to see, City look bad for taking the piss as it’ll be reported and Messi will look petulant and ruin his reputation.
But it’s Messi’s reputation we are trying to tap in to, it’s what we are relying on to recoup our money and increase our sponsorship worth, dragging it through a court does nobody any favours long term. We are hated enough without adding to it. The courts will take years and we will end up paying something, it makes more sense to agree now what that‘ll be and get it done as soon as is possible.
It’ll not be us paying though, if reports are correct by our resident ITK’s then Messi will take a reduced wage but receive a share in the CFG to cash in at a later date. I’m sure the agreement will be it’s a set amount but any fee Messi has to pay will be reduced from his share. That may not mean much to us but the shares he’ll receive will be based on a set expected growth, the more he gets now allocated to him, the wealthier he’ll be down the line! It’s a no brainier from our point of view or his. So as much as people say “he’s free to leave” yes he probably is but Barça will not go down without a fight, or more accurately Bartomeu won’t as he’s fucked either way this plays out. It’s not about the great club Barcelona, it’s about a greedy president trying to save his own arse, literally. Don’t forget Messi believes he can leave for free too so that’s still to play out yet and I do t see him making this move without cast iron proof that’s the case. The lawyers represent8ng him wrote the damn thing. Also the leaked contract states “end of season” with no dates but look at it logically again.. It can’t state a date as 4 years ago nobody had an idea when seasons would start/finish as they vary each year. You can’t believe that when this was signed they knew 100% that this season was going to end June the 10th or whatever the date being pushed is, add in FIFA’s amendments and I think it’s pretty clear myself.
How I see this panning out is Messi will buy out his contract for an ‘undisclosed fee’ and sign for City on a free. We’ll then pay something like a £300k wage with a healthy bonus structure in line with the others. He’ll not receive a signing on fee or if he does it’ll be worth not much in reality. He’ll then be gifted shares in the group valued at say £150m, the longer he stays the more those shares mature. He’ll do 3 at City then the 2 reported at NYCFC. By the 5 years his shares could be worth double as a minimum! He’ll then cash them in and walk away a very happy man. Nothing Barça can offer will compete, this is why they’ll (Messi’s camp) try to resolve this quickly and smoothly and get the send off he deserves. The only way this doesn’t go our way is if Messi does indeed bottle it or his love of the club outweighs anything else including a huge pay day but I suspect not.
In the mean time if the ‘Messi tax’ we allegedly insert in to every sponsor deal is in fact real, then we will already be into our sponsors upping their input to the club. Let’s say Etihad continue as stadium/campus sponsor only but up their agreement by £10m, Puma up theirs a similar price say £8m, Nissan another £5m increase let’s say, Etislat £5m and then the other 38 sponsors up theirs around £2m... All per annum by the way, that’d be an annual increase of £104m in sponsorship. But we’d need a shirt sponsor so add another £30m a year as a conservative estimate and we can potentially increase revenue by £134m per annum before any other endorsement deals or shirt sales. This is why we want this resolved quickly and why £85m is worth paying if needed.
Over the 5 year reported contract term, the minimum we could expect based on the above would be around £670,000,000 let that sink in!!! That’s just off signing 1 player in his 30’s.
In other words, stop flapping, if this comes off the numbers stack up and I’m being conservative I think in my numbers.
