Barcelona really cannot afford to get messy with Lionel

IT LOOKS as though Real Madrid are going to lift their first La Liga title since 2017 and Barcelona, the reigning champions, will go into the close season resembling a family in conflict and misunderstanding.

Amid this turmoil, Lionel Messi is one year away from the end of his contract and Barca officials’ nervousness continue to grow. The “will he, won’t he” discussions are gathering pace and Messi is clearly resembling an unhappy man who wishes he was somewhere else. His body language isn’t good and he hasn’t looked a player at the very top of his game since La Liga resumed in June.

Guillem Balague, writing for the BBC website, suggested many of the rumours around Messi are untrue and although they come with the territory for a player of his profile, the little Argentinian is fed-up at the moment. But, adds Balague, Messi is not unhappy with his team-mate Antoine Griezmann and, along with Luis Suarez, regularly socialises with the Frenchman. Marca notes, however, that Griezmann and Messi are both discontent at the moment, the former displeased about his lack of game time and Messi because the season seems to slipping away from Barca.

With the ongoing political situation at the club, Messi – who has a leave clause in his current contract – may be persuaded to stay if Xavi was appointed as coach, says Eurosport. The former Barca midfielder has renewed his contract at Qatar’s Al-Saad, but he has a release clause should Barca come looking for him.

Messi is very influential at Barca and critics say he has too much involvement in events at the club. Some people have said he was instrumental in Ernesto Valverde getting sacked in January. Messi himself has said the incident was badly handled by the club. He also wants the club elections, which take place next year, fast-tracked to 2020 – probably to make his last year more harmonious.

Is there a club that could handle Messi if he does decide to leave? Eurosport reported that Zinedine Zidane, Real Madrid’s coach, has urged him not to leave Barca and La Liga. The Indian Express suggested that Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City could afford him. There’s talk of him returning to Argentina with Newell’s Old Boys.

Graham Hunter, on TalkSport, believed Manchester City would go “hell for leather” to sign Messi but cautioned that Guardiola might not necessarily be as keen as the club. “I think Pep has doubts about how well Messi will work in the system because of the level of pressure and work off the ball,” says Hunter. At Barca, Messi is allowed to do exactly what he wants to do.

AS says Messi has halted contract talks, according to radio station Cadena Seri even though they were proceeding well. “Messi has told his inner circle of his frustration, complaining he does not want to be held responsible for anything than his performances on the pitch.”

Messi has been criticised for the way he deals with the coaching staff at the club. His disagreement with director of football Eric Abidal was well documented and recently, he has had problems with coach Quique Setién and Eder Sarabia. AS pointed to Messi’s out burst a few months ago when he said Barca didn’t have enough quality to win the Champions League. Setién disagreed but Messi’s response implied the Barca coach didn’t have enough experience of the competition. The Spanish newspaper believes that Messi is coming to the end of his career with Barcelona and wants to leave the club in June 2021.

What is Messi worth in the market, personal terms aside? CIES Football Observatory values the 33 year-old at around € 70 – 90 million, while KPMG Football Benchmark goes considerably higher at € 127- 134 million.

Sources: Independent, AS, Marca, BBC, TalkSport, Eurosport, Indian Express

@GameofthePeople

Anti-racism in football is more than a hashtag – and must go beyond scratching the surface

FOOTBALL has always been full of hypocrisy, from self-appointed socialists living in gated communities and driving marque vehicles to clubs trying to position themselves as representatives of a surreal people’s republic that charges its members astronomical sums to be a part of the tribe. And they are quick to show they are embracing the latest cause, be it one driven by social media, an opportunity to share a minute’s silence or applause, or wear hero-making t-shirts. Just how genuine it all is can be debated for hours, but football cannot resist a passing bandwagon.

Black lives matter – they certainly do, and no right-minded person should disagree with that sentiment. We all look in horror at the events taking place in the US – an all too frequent outbreak that has punctuated the nation’s history since the 1960s – but we should also examine our own society and realise we also have big problems of a similar nature. We do not appear to have learned an awful lot from the past.

Jonathan Liew of The Guardian is a shade cynical when referring to the decision by the Premier League to place the slogan Black Lives Matter across the back of every football shirt when the action resumes: “It hasn’t formally been decided whether black lives will matter beyond next week”. He adds that this is a “laughingly piffling gesture – a bit of fabric stitched to another bit of fabric”.

Ian Wright, speaking on the BBC website, said the Premier League wants to be on the right side of history by launching the shirt initiative. Surely that’s a “going forward” thing? The past is the past, it cannot be erased, no matter how many statues go for an early bath. Surely, we learn from a chronicled past and its accompanying struggles – be they race, gender, sexual orientation – provide inspiration and guidance for the next generation? Barney Ronay, also of The Guardian wonders if we are witnessing the beginning of the end of history – for Colston read Dickens or Churchill. On the subject of slavery, it is worth reading Afua Hirsch’s book, Brit (ish) where she highlights the lack of teaching about the history of slavery and the appalling and unbelievable treatment of people.

Rod Liddle of The Times, admittedly a journalist who divides opinion, informs us that Black Lives Matter is an organisation that has at its core the destruction of capitalism. This is rather ironic given everyone, from banks to high street shops and, of course, football clubs, have lent their support to the message. The Premier League is a child of capitalism and globalisation – do they not realise that they owe their existence to this bumbling concept?

Liddle’s colleague, Henry Winter, notes that “it is not enough simply to take a knee, tweet a stance and stage a day of action, a week of hashtags or a month of debate.”

Just how deep is football’s awareness of the real issues and are clubs’ just paying lip service? Arsenal, who have always seemed a reasonable club, tweeted their support of anti-racism, but the sceptics were quick to remind them they failed to support midfielder Mesut Özil when he spoke-out against the treatment of Uighurs in China. RT added the sight of a top Premier club “taking a knee” in a well orchestrated photo opportunity looked like they were trying too hard to do the right thing after past mishaps. Tottenham were incensed by the yobbish scenes in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire and were quick to distance themselves from the behaviour of people wearing their colours. “They are no fans of ours,” they said. No club is immune from some criticism – the Raheem Sterling incident at Chelsea seemed to include similar characters of a certain demographic. Too often, fans in the vicinity of racists just laugh, look the other way or just shake their heads – these people are intimidating, as they intend to be. But in this age of CCTV and selfies, prosecution should be much easier.

The mud that sticks is football and racism are indelibly linked, even though not all clubs have racists in their crowds. Those involved in the recent demos have invariably been chanting football songs and one group, the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (never trust any group that has ‘democratic’ as its prefix), created a unified mob drawn from various clubs. What they fail to realise is their narrative is largely dismissed because of the way they look, the way they deliver their message and the underlying mood of menace.

Melissa Reddy in The Independent, pointed out that the racists socially distance themselves from any smidgen of intelligence, adopting a Nazi salute while defending Winston Churchill yet glorifying his role in the defeat of Adolf Hitler. No wonder that John Barnes, whose backheel of a banana provided an iconic image from the game’s racist heritage, says education is the key. “It may be too late for a 40 year-old racist to change, but his son might,” he said.

Barney Ronay reminds us that while the current protests “centre on visible symbols of oppression” we must also consider how football has been happy to be associated with regimes that are misaligned with our own. We need look no further than FIFA and the World Cup – notably Italy, Argentina, Russia and Qatar. These countries, with authoritarian regimes, were all awarded the World Cup. In the case of Qatar, the Kafala system, which exploits migrant workers, has been compared to modern-day slavery. Since being awarded the World Cup, Qatar has introduced laws to diminish the system, but would they have done so under normal circumstances?

It is hard to see beyond the lure of oil money to find something that attracts FIFA to Qatar, but owner suitability questions should also be asked of individuals and companies from Abu Dhabi (UAE Personal Freedom rating 128^th), China (126^th), Russia (114^th) and Saudi Arabia (149^th). Furthermore, after their recent social problems, can the United States really claim to be the land of the free and home of the brave?

Sources: The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, BBC, RT, Goal, Marketing.
Further reading: Brit (ish) by Afua Hirsch.

@GameofthePeople

Photo: PA

Football Media Watch: Not everyone wants the Premier League to return

THEY say turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and there’s an element of that in the posturing around “Project Restart”, a table-thumping marketing slogan that fits nicely into the Coronavirus narrative.

Naturally, those that have something to lose in continuing the Premier League programme from where it stopped are less enthused than the mid-table men of mediocrity, hence the bottom clubs are against neutral venues and would be quite happy if the season was abandoned and we reassemble (with masks and our two-metre tape measures) once the mathematicians have produced a graph showing the infection rate and death toll have both peaked.

Steve Parish of Crystal Palace, speaking in a variety of publications, has urged caution and stated he believes that restarting the season “may be beyond us”. Brighton’s medical report may also encourage people not to leap headlong into a resumption of combat. A third player recently tested positive and this has fuelled more opposition for the project.

Rod Liddle of the Sunday Times reminded us not everything about the Premier is an “untrammelled delight”. From the almost mandatory minute’s silence at every game, part of the “Dianafication of public life”, to Jürgen Klopp’s unearthly smile from his brilliant white teeth and the woke, leftish sensibilities of Pep Guardiola, Liddle is not alone in his irritation. “It would not surprise me if the Premier League demands that matches are stopped halfway through so that players can line-up and give a round of applause to NHS staff,” said Liddle.

Also from the Times’ stable, David Walsh wrote that the virus has exposed the fragility of the business. “Championship clubs spend £ 1.06 of every £ 1 they bring in… ‘Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 and six, result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery,’ Charles Dickens wrote in David Copperfield,” he noted. Walsh added that football’s model has to change, especially at those clubs where they gamble money they haven’t got. “Perhaps the time has come for Leagues one and two to evolve into regional divisions where costs are significantly lower.”

Paul McInnes in The Guardian highlighted that clubs are torn between the head and the heart and have four stances to confront: maintaining the integrity of the competition (while worrying about money); actually agreeing when football should return; health issues; and finding the right conditions for the restart. Again, turkeys will not willingly vote for anything which will jeapordise their own position.

Asking clubs to vote on the solution when the season is far from over is an unsatisfactory situation because decisions will not always be made objectively. While Brighton’s Chief Executive rightly points out the resumption could cost lives, it could also cost his team their place in the Premier League. Club officials do also have the added concern about legal issues if a player becomes sick because of the return to action, but who is going to vote for something that may relegate their own club?

Another Guardian writer, Jonathan Wilson, predicts the new normal may be a period where games are played without full stadiums. “A major recession seems all but certain. Sponsorship, advertising and commercial income will all drop….Nobody knows how travel may continue to be affected, reducing the viability of international tournaments and foreign tours. This is the biggest financial hit facing the game since the 1930s.”

Sources: The Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Sky Sports News, The Guardian.