Wanted to. Change his mind. Want to. Tell us about contracts. Hello martin to the program im convinced saw football earlier now messi has been forced to back down in his attempt to leave his lifelong Football Club f. C. Barcelona the argentine ended weeks of speculation by announcing hes reluctantly decided to stay for one more season but i see said he would see are his contract until next year to avoid taking the club to course the player wanted to leave on a free transfer but barker in the Spanish League say hes bound by an 837000000 dollars buyout clause messes decision doesnt end the dream for his fans back home in argentina those who hope hell one day return to his childhood club. Has more from when a scientist. Hes staying with he wants to go with the world of football wants to know is where and while the enormous his destination be on next season remains unclear the dream among fans around the world as it will be their club for now. Its been a difficult year i suffered a lot in training during the games and in the changing room it made it very difficult so i thought id leave the club in search of new objectives a new environment and a new experience for me. Fans in missys home city rosario are hoping hell want to find those new experiences with his boyhood club rules old boys she wont be sacking im not going to mess hes coming to us the biggest club in argentina weve had marriage on here and now we should have messi their numbers are going mayor koch is up or leo deserves love hes not had much space to play in his career mules could give that to him. But could the club be left when he was 14 years old before the player earning a reported half a 1000000 euros a week money may not be the only incentive the 33 year old has always said his heart was in. The ira he returned in 2018 to marry his childhood sweetheart and the city certainly loves him although hes a footling icon in this football mad country leo messi left argentina before he could play professional football there are no memories of him here no nostalgia the still dream that one day soon he returned home in the found to be able to see his magic with their own eyes born only when mrs eventual destination has been a hot topic in argentina a distraction from the pandemic its even drawn in the countrys president but is it a viable dream or a crazy fantasy nobody can take away their you and me we have there isnt. Im joe measure retires he will be there is a year or 2 to watch missy will be playing with us as always here shirts so. In that sense they will keep the russian and until the end. These was not clearly the moment to come to i didnt you know rachel knew it. Theres still hope that mobile car is a tradition here a star players like to visit but on returning to play for their boyhood clubs of the making their fortunes in Europe Leo Messi playing in argentina in the rules all boys shirt not yet but maybe one day. Try the road a 01 a side east. Ride time to bring in our guests from sheffield in the u. K. Is rob will finish a football finance expert and head of department of finance accounting and Business Systems at Sheffield Business School in barcelona we have gemma solar a football reporter and presenter for gul t. V. And from london andrew nixon a sports lawyer and partner at sheridan sets of Sports Law Group welcome to you all thank you for your time so turns out hes not leaving barcelona after all id like to start with you andrew want to you think was his calculation was that the threat of a legal battle was just too much. Yeah i think theres probably 2 components 1st of all there is the. Desire or lack of desire 1 not to have a legal battle with a club so if hes done so much for him over the last 60 or 70 years but also the reality is legal case would have been on balance a weak one as we understand that the contractual date written into the contract was june attend and youre certain in terms of the literal interpretation of a c. Has missed that date and is therefore time barred and one might be able to run arguments in relation to the owing people intention of the parties at the time the contract was made so it was simply there may be an argument in relation to the intention to run and of the season but the reality is if the date was written into the contract then he is to all intents time by d doubts or to be the case i under english law and so he my understanding is it would also be the case under spanish law i guess the 2nd limb of any argument might roll over on whether or not all the 700. 00 and biography is abusive or or might be independent because. The valuation of the role that i sneaked out in due course but the valuation of that will be tied to his salary and the wind he was in but equally theres an argument that a player with one year left on a contract hes a huge truck to the level and may arguably be disproportionate but i dont think he would get over the 1st person him in any event so i suspect that would be academic whether the 700000 was a 700000000. So i got a 100000000 thats right thats what i thought i mean just a phenomenal amount of money to come to you just tell us why it is that messy wants to leave is it all just about the silverware well its been quite pleasant for messy it with this story that stuck the 20 years ago with this relationship that it was like a fairy tale before and the last few years because they really unfold both young player in argentina and he had this medical disease he needed money in argentina no club will help him his father finds barcelona number 2 on a helps brings him in barcelona in 2000 with only 13 years old and then he emerges as the best player in the world nowadays and the only player who has been able to read more than a day could in these level and he wins everything individually collectively so everything seemed like perfect but the last 2 years he had many troubles with the board of members of this club of x e barcelona he was unhappy because he thought the team was not competitive enough and he asked for it at the signing of the resigning of neymar this that happened and then many things happen economically in the way quite unprofessional these Board Members have been driving the team with not having enough money to buy players and with sport 5. If they can decisions that he was not very happy with and the things they dont work in the field so they have 3 shameful defeats in europe in a role in rome 3 years ago in liverpool last year and these the wars that feed the 2 year wait in their lives go on so he was unhappy and he wanted to spend the last competitive years being in a team where he felt happy. What he felt he could still win so that decision made him take that decision to go to that cross that according to healing according to law or did the lawyers that have assessed him he has told us that in the interview that he was telling the president during this year i went along i want to leave im not happy and i want to use this clause and the president will say tell him we will talk at the end of the season we will talk at the end of the season so that close that on through so the 10th of june he interpreted that meant the end of the season this was an exceptional season because of they called it and that and that or so he exactly try to exit with that clause the club with these the say they stick to the 10th of june and this divorce eventually will not be happening and he will be staying one more year things are pretty pretty ugly nevertheless and he said you know he does still want to leave but hes going to stay for another season rob where will he go when he does finally leave we have newells old boys in argentina you know holds the dream of having him back but in reality who can afford him. And the really interesting thing about that the leno messy situation is that its perhaps not as big an economic argument as we might with wants thought because of his of his age im not im not convinced that the amount of money that hes going to be seeking his weekly wage or indeed his pie endorsements and his name and his image rights are going to be quite at the level that hes progeny at barcelona so so i think regardless of the of the buyout cools it actually brings him into the market for a select number of clubs at least particularly those playing in western europe and and in that group of clubs i guess im talking about the likes of Manchester City of of parson your mom potentially one of the its highly in big teams you know youve anticipated someone pops or even a blind munich in the bundesliga so i think putting together a weekly paycheck for him and making some sort of agreement over those image rights would be doable for one of those clubs of course none of them will really want to even engage in the type of discussion that might result in the 700000000 pound sorry 700000000 euro transfer fee buyout clause he has available to him and im not convinced this is all said and done i know hes come out and hes done his interview to say hes going to stay in barcelona but i wonder if if one of those aforementioned cups ive just mentioned will actually try and test boss lenders all with with a decent transfer of faith because lets face it he is hes getting towards the end of his korea and theres an opportunity to cash in on the asset and you want to come back to you what does all of this the sentai debacle tell us about football the contract. Well i mean i think one of the most interesting aspects of this case is actually theres potentially a number of jurisdictions in play you know it was in my understanding is that his contract was written in governing or spanish was going to go and it was the response courts will have jurisdiction over any any dispute. But ultimately also barcelona if say you. Did walk on to the contract based on his view. That he had activated the release lawfully then barcelona could obviously bring a complaint to fisa under article 17 which i was you relates to claires leaving with with just cause d you have this interesting scenario here whereby theres 2 potential jurisdictions and put one in relation to the spanish civil courts of long in relation to cease and that theyve been just the Resolution Chamber i suspect the latter would be more for bill in relation to this case simply because that would lead to a speedy or outcome but also crucially. The club signed him in the event that he did seek to walk our d it would be joined in 70 liable in relation to any by the d provision it was determined or deemed to be lawful in the circumstances and also with the d. R. S. The provisions under article 17 theres also potential sport exemptions for both both the player and indeed the signing club so that also the layer of negotiating leverage and i guess one of the key aspects here is that really i did he want to see you know consistent governing on his system jurisdiction provisions of malaysian player contracts ok rob i want to talk about you a fair financial fair play regulations for those who may not be familiar they mean a club ive been a correct me if im wrong they made a club cant spend more than they earn basically in the pursuit of success in july the court of arbitration for sport ruled in favor of Manchester City and its appeal against that suspension and actually had it fine no it some people went angry about that the fish and want to take. Well you youre absolutely right the financial fair play rules essentially a trend of encouraging rather force clubs to break even so that is to say they dont spend any more money than they earn what we also have in the situation is that your own the person that owns the club will recall the body that owns the club is only permitted to invest a very small amount of Additional Capital into that club to offset some of those losses so the floor around month since he was essentially that they had inflate to some of the commercial sponsorship deals that that money hadnt come from those sponsor commercial partners and actually come from the ownership and that was where there was there was a potential breach of course as you say call of arbitration for sport ruled in favor of Manchester City and said that the fine was in a proportion either im going to be honest i was fairly surprised myself which leads me to wonder whether or not we havent done a sufficient amount of Due Diligence we heard a lot and you mention theres something called time bars whereby what i think cuts essentially said is that the case wasnt brought soon enough and and you cant really sanction somebody for something that was done so far in the past and is absolutely going to be on the minds of a number of those elite clubs in europe because we can have a slight relaxation i think of those financial fair play regulations as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic so i think the way for are going to allow a little bit more flexibility and and thats to be perfectly honest weve seen chelsea very recently flexing their financial muscle in the in the in the transfer market and breaking that transfer deal just yesterday with the signing of from from by labor coups and so its not beyond the realm of possibility that other elite clubs in europe will just look to test the boundaries of the envelope particularly in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and im really test the resolve of your wife around the regulations dan i want your take do you think the court of arbitration for sport ruling is undermined those financial fair play regulations beyond repair i mean can the super rich clubs just do as they think. Well weve seen it in the lousier that they theyve managed to think stuart to. Sign the best players and there is a huge difference between this club in the premier league much as that city can sign and the rest can sign or in league on what b. As you can do the rest of the of the themes so i need. This kind of regulation because otherwise the competition is completely this weird to wait and there is no fair play. I dont mean in the economy but in the field in the study and when there is a difference that makes the competition this game this Football Game less interesting that if there is this kind of relation andrew one harvard study looked at footballs financial integrity or lack of it is it said it talks about structural financial weakness in football i want to quote to you here it says the sector is dominated by a small elite of clubs players and owners scented in europes top leagues the thousands of clubs beyond that have little reason or since constituting a vast base of have nots in a financial period pyramid how do you begin to address that and football does it even need to be addressed or is that just the nature of the game. I think the starting point is its the its its the nature of the european model of sport which is o. C. Different to the us model of sport which which builds in a degree of inverted commas fairness in relation to. How the leaks are structured in relation to the best players arising from the College System can be picked up and selected its not its not dominated by the biggest check book per se. But at the same time you know there are ways and means you can address the issues within within european football of the financial fair play it is one of those and theres many who argue that its proven to have lacked the teeth that it needs to. Properly and fully regulate the issues even 10 to 5 but theres also ways you can you can improve and build the mechanisms in the mechanics and im trying to get compensation and so adare payments to ensure that the trickle down effect is is is in play and remains intact because the trickle down effect is a really important underpinning of the european model of sport and certain some would say that thats being you know pushed to the wayside in recent years and that needs to be focused on again because you know the element of hobbs and hobnobs that is not something which which makes the particularly attractive to broadcasters and sponsors. You know its something that clearly needs to be looked at but but the point of principle is that. You know the european model of sport has always worked on that basis it just d needs to be managed and regulated in the right way rob i can think of you you know not being 000000 perhaps not want to take on that. Well it let the research weve done sheffield business go with my one of my coauthors chappell done plenty focuses on compacts about his capacity of integrity i was interested in the harvard report said what it did because if you go back to the very constructs of the you. Financial fair play regulations they are still they set out to do 2 things one was to reduce financial sorry improve Financial Sustainability across European Club football i think i would argue that that has been achieved we see many fewer instances of administration for example go in its a Football Clubs much much greater number of clubs of surviving and competing now financially but the other thing they want is the was improved competitive balance and basically says that we want clubs to be more competitive against each other on the field of play and thats where financial fair play as a regulation has completely failed actually because you now have a group of the say 20 or so clubs that would be considered the super elite they have you know the majority of the revenue barcelona ramadan spain for example soak up huge amount of Television Deal in la look at the premier league youve got top 6 that generate saying enough 34500000000. 00 pounds worth of revenue each year so they are naturally now becoming much much bigger than theyre assuming that domestic counterparts was starting to see the competitive balance erode right across europe paying competition as well and thats really dangerous from a broadcasting point of view because you are pissing together teams that arent competitive so ultimately that then will reduce things like broadcast fees things like sponsorship fees commercial revenue and so on and i think that will damage the stability of a football finances across across europe and i think where were in a place now where we need to start learning a few lessons from the american model of saints for which is what we essentially refer to in this harvard report which is basically an equally distributing things Like Television revenue and and some other bits and pieces to support those socalled small it seems to be more competitive both in the transfer market paying players wages and then ultimately on the field of play the danger calls for that for all of those Super League Clubs if they absolutely dont want it which is why they were also happy to sign up for the financial fair play regulations in the 1st place because it protected the status quo so. We we have to talk about is the coronavirus pandemic and how that has impacted football as a whole demo what has the impact been you know both on the game on the Business Model and whats the situation with the league or how has coronavirus impacted the season and the cash flow. Well it has had huge impacts and we havent seen it all because we know in spain government has just said that the people are going to this at least until next year so these huge loss for collapse for example we were talking about f. C. Barcelona they have. That can feel 100000. 00 people its going to be empty for a year. And counting and about merchandising that are notorious there is no t. Shirts being sold and so on and so on. They are quite happy with that the seizure of messi not living because this tremendously their t. V. Rights internationally having and not having neymar they may see they have already lost the other stars like neymar into the scanner and are losing you know messi was an absolutely this our star and about the football about the sport now its not affecting because also we still have a lot of people in america still being looked down so in the t. V. Audiences of leda and they say that after march when they restart the championship they have doubled the t. V. All the ants in international. Sights so they they still think they can have a benefit from this for next season but for like that is that is us are and i also think it tells us that as well for the players i was in the one in the final 8. Its a different sport of the its a different thing for players is another way of speaking im not going to say that barcelona loose to wait because there was no funds but it can bring a player to. Say a kind of fight and they dont have 50000 people cheering and trying to make them do. Something else so its another sport of it i think it affects more football than maybe other sports where the study and are smaller and the density is different but i want to go full so the circle because we are ending the narrowing the end of the program andrew when we are coming back to the messy he said he wanted to leave now hes not leaving until the end of the season next season how do you think fans will react i mean the fact that he wants to leave but isnt. Yeah i think they they do care. And i think that i think theres a number of ways that looking at it i mean obviously this is a player he has you know has given 1617 years worth of that service to this great Football Club and ultimately if he starts performing on the field of play if you start scoring goals and if he sure is that commitment that he has said he will share one demonstrate next season then i suspect hell quickly be forgiven and of course you know this Time Next Year hell be able to activate his right to do as he pleases and i suspect you know the majority of fans. Would respect out i suspect theres a lot of commercial aspects in play as well in relation to barcelona as decision to play hardball this time around i suspect your message is a key part of their commercial program at the very least over the next 12 months and i just stepped out as it was the you know a key facet to their to their thinking and of course you know how they engage with their fans as they are his proof. Of the same that them or those commercial imperatives do seem to be the bottom line and a lot of there we will have to leave it there for a time i do appreciate all 3 of you coming on the Program Thanks for that rob wilson gemma solar and andrew nixon and thank you to you for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our web site is there dot com and for more discussion go to our Facebook Page fence facebook dot com for tash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is the a. J. Inside story for me can be down the whole team cant find out. 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