La Liga president Javier Tebas has said Manchester City cannot not sign Lionel Messi on his previous Barcelona terms without “financial doping”.
Messi is now a free agent after his Barcelona contract expired on June 30 and the club’s current financial issues are hindering their attempts to re-sign him. That has led to rumours clubs like City, who were linked with him last summer, or PSG could step in.
Tebas claims it would not be legitimately possible for the Premier League team to sign him, on a deal matching his previous salary, given their losses during the pandemic.
Speaking at a press conference, the president of the Spanish competition said: “He won’t be able to sign with the same conditions of the former contract, that would be absolutely impossible.
“I don’t think any European club would be able to pay that amount – not just Barcelona. I don’t think any club would be able to pay that amount of his former contract.
“If City have lost 270million euros, obviously they wouldn’t even consider signing up Messi, and PSG have had big losses – they just can’t take into account signing up Messi.
“If they do it, then they will continue to do what I say – it will be the financial doping. “I told (City manager Pep) Guardiola this too, and I directly said that to him – would you have won as many titles without as much economic doping?
- Cristiano Ronaldo shouldn’t be afraid I am back in Italy – Mourinho
- Barcelona cut Memphis Depay’s salary only three weeks after arrival
- England charged by UEFA over laser pointer during penalty & ‘disturbance’ during national anthem
“When the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) let off Manchester City, there were a lot of comments about that – (Jose) Mourinho and all these other coaches said this. So, if this happens, I really think it would be absolutely incredible that it would happen.
“So this is the sort of governance where we should establish minutes. This economic doping in football is what is really damaging football.
“It inflates the salaries, it means that there is non-real money that is involved, because it is not generated by the club.
“So if the money in the football industry isn’t generated by football, it just causes inflation, and it’s a bad type of inflation that just ruins football because then the clubs have to put in all this effort that is well above their financial capacity. They just have to look at their sports capacity.
“We need to really fight against this, and we will continue to do this all the time. I think this is one of our pending issues in European football and if it’s not solved soon, it could lead us to a very complicated financial situation in European football.”
