hgblue said:
BillyShears said:
Messi will cost close to his buy out which is 250 million euros. He is the greatest player ever, is a model professional, has no history of madness or injuries.
As for making the money back - whatever he'd cost, City would make it back in spades.
Next summer's going to be very interesting.
On one hand you're praising the club's more holistic approach to transfers, steering clear of Cavani and Falcoa, then you suggest we pay 250 million euros for one player? That figure is OBSCENE.
It's all relative. Paying €65m, or whatever it was, for Cavani, or even €55 - 60m for Falcao, would be obscene. (Or indeed £22m for Lescott, or £18m for RSC...).
Paying €250m for Messi, however, might be justifiable:
1) Messi is far better than any of those players - even the likes of Falcao, who is a superb player. He's quite possibly the best player ever to play the game, and certainly the best since 1990.
2) He's still relatively young, looks after himself and is injury free.
3) His commercial value to City would be huge. Obviously he is a fantastic player who would help us go further in the CL, which would bring greater revenues in itself (though we should be able to make substantial progress anyway). But it's in corporate sponsorships, media income, invitationals and brand building that he would have enormous value to City.
Despite our success to date and the investment made by Sheikh Mansour, we're still lagging behind the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool (not to mention United, Real and the likes) in our global presence. The South Africa tour contained clear visual evidence of that, by the way. No doubt that will improve over time and the club have clear strategies in place to help it do so which should bear fruit over the medium term. However, Messi would accelerate that process massively. Personality-wise he also fits with the club's image in a way that I don't think Ronaldo (the only other player who could have a comparable commercial impact) does.
Clearly it is down to Ferran and co to crunch the numbers but, at the right levels, purchasing Messi could be an investment in the true sense of that word (as in, likely to provide a positive financial return to the club over a sensible timescale).
