La Liga has made it known that any potential suitors for Lionel Messi should be prepared to pony up €700 million.
The top flight of Spanish football released a statement Sunday in support of Barcelona’s claims that a unilateral agreement in Messi’s contract that would permit a departure this summer on a free transfer expired on June 26.
“In line with the regulations and procedure that apply in such instances, La Liga shall not proceed with the release required for the player to be deregistered from the Spanish Football Federation unless the aforementioned clause has been paid,” the statement read.
Messi’s legal team argues that the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent work stoppage mean the special clause in his contract should be extended through the end of August.
The Argentine wasn’t seen attending Sunday’s COVID-19 testing at Barcelona’s Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper training facility.
Messi’s absence follows reports suggesting the player’s representatives advised him not to attend testing or the start of Barcelona’s preseason preparations on Monday to strengthen his legal position on the matter.
On Tuesday, the 33-year-old reportedly told Barcelona he wants to leave by triggering the special clause in his terms with the club he made his professional debut for in 2004.
Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are among a select group of teams reportedly linked with interest in Messi.
Sunday’s statement marks the first time La Liga has publicly commented on the issue.
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“It starts with the imagination. If you have something in your head and you’re saying, ‘OK, this is what I’m going to do.’ You have to be creative.”
Heading into his seventh NFL season, his third in Dallas, Cooper starts 2020 fresh off his five-year contract extension with $60 million guaranteed. He’s ready to prove himself as an elite receiver, and, maybe less notably, as the Cowboys’ resident chess guru.
From his large, sunny kitchen outside of Dallas, Cooper, 26, lights up when talking about playing chess, and remembers exactly when the game first captivated him as an elementary school student in northwest Miami.
“My music teacher ran the chess club after school,” Cooper said. “But if we were done with our music lesson that day, he would teach us chess lessons.” The teacher encouraged Cooper to join the after-school chess club, but even from a young age, Cooper already was committed to another passion.
“I probably came after school one time [to chess club], because I was more interested in going to my after-school program, which is where we would play football.”
In the years that followed, graduating from Miami Northwestern Senior High School, three years as a standout receiver for the University of Alabama, declaring for the NFL draft following his junior season in 2015, Cooper hardly touched a pawn on the chessboard. But his initial interest in the game’s intricacies and deception never left his mind.
And in 2015, the desire to play chess was reignited.
Wide receiver Amari Cooper started all 16 games for the Cowboys last season, netting 79 receptions for 1,189 yards and eight touchdowns. Ric Tapia via AP Photo
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Awuzie and former Cowboys cornerback Donovan Olumba, now with the Browns, had just established their own chess rivalry when they invited Cooper to join. But with one stipulation: They had to play over a real chessboard, not on an app.
Olumba purchased the board at a discount store, according to a story in The Dallas Morning News. The round pieces in the set give it the appearance of checkers, with the exception of the designations on top: Labels that identify each piece as a pawn, king, queen, rook, bishop or knight.
“Donovan started playing [Cooper], and beat him the first time,” Awuzie said. “After that, he never beat him again, and he just sort of fell off.
“That’s when we really started playing together.”
While admittedly a less experienced chess player, Awuzie, like Cooper, relates his strategies in chess to his mentality on the field.
“As a defensive back, I’m more reactionary,” Awuzie said. “[Cooper] studies, does a bunch of stuff to get better at chess. I never did any of that. So, I see what he does and I try to find the best move to react to it.”
“Now,” he adds with a proud smirk, “I’m catching up to him.” As only a master of deception could, with a blank face, Cooper plays off his chess rival coolly.
“He’s a pretty good opponent. Sometimes he wins.”
Yet last season, Cooper posted to his Instagram story some simple text over a black background that read: “Don’t let Chido [Awuzie] fool ya’ll. He’s 21-5 overall against me in chess. Only time he wins is when I make it easy.”
The Cowboys have quarterback Dak Prescott playing on the franchise tag this season and wide receiver Amari Cooper signed to a five-year, $100 million deal. Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images
Cooper’s the knight
Cooper’s insatiable drive is triggered when facing any of his opponents, whether juking and sprinting past them on the field or staring at them, emotionless, while leaning over a chessboard.
Cooper’s endgame is with himself as he strives to become a grandmaster of all pursuits.
Sixty years ago, America’s Team became the NFL’s 13th team. For more on the franchise’s storied history:
Lionel Messi’s demand to leave Barcelona on a free transfer reverberated across the globe.
Soon, Neymar was reportedly on the phone with Messi, trying to pitch a move to Paris Saint-Germain. Some Inter Milan and Juventus supporters harbor hopes that their club can bankroll a Messi switch to Italy. Fans of Newell’s Old Boys held a street parade in an effort to tempt the unsettled Argentine to Rosario, the city he left at the age of 13. However, a reunion with his former Barca manager, Pep Guardiola, at Manchester City appears to be the likeliest route for Messi.
Amid all the rumors and posturing, only one thing is consistent: The general consensus seems to be that Messi will depart Barcelona. It’s just a matter of where he ends up.
But it’s much more complicated than that.
Francisco Dominguez, a lawyer who oversees the sporting department of DTR Abogados in Barcelona, told The Athletic’s Adam Crafton and Dermot Corrigan that he doesn’t believe Messi will be able to trigger the termination clause in his contract. The clause apparently expired June 10, a date designed to coincide with the end of the 2019-20 season, but Messi’s representatives believe their client’s request – which was submitted Tuesday – should be accepted because of the prolonged campaign.
“The first option is to apply the literality of the words,” Dominguez said, specifically referring to Spanish law practices. And those words clearly state that Messi had until June 10 to terminate his contract with Barcelona. Nothing in the paperwork mentioned a global crisis.
Eric Alonso/MB Media / Getty Images Sport / Getty
Even if Messi’s lawyers successfully argue the deadline should be extended because of the coronavirus-induced hiatus, Dominguez argues the superstar is still too late.
“The clause in the contract is June 10 and the end of the season contractually is June 30, when contracts usually end, marking the end of the season. This, therefore, means a 20-day period before the ‘end’ of the season,” Dominguez explained.
He continued: “If we then accept circumstances have changed because of the pandemic, we can then say the season ends on Aug. 23, the day of the Champions League final. As such, I would argue he needed to send the burofax (written request) 20 days before the season ended, and he did not do this on Aug. 3. So, it means the player is wrong, to me, in any case.”
Messi’s burofax bombshell landed in the Barcelona boardroom Aug. 25.
“Nobody I have spoken to in Europe – and I have spoken to a lot of legal colleagues – understands Messi’s position,” Dominguez said.
Messi breaching his contract to force a free transfer would undoubtedly spark a huge legal battle involving Barcelona, Messi, his representatives, and his new employers. Messi himself could be liable for the €700-million release clause in his deal.
Within the football sphere, FIFA could hand Messi a six-month global ban and bar his new club from signing players for two transfer windows. The sport’s governing body could also impose significant financial penalties upon both Messi and his next club.
Whether the case is resolved by the Spanish courts, FIFA, or both, a resolution is unlikely to be reached by Oct. 5, when the transfer window shuts for each of Europe’s five major leagues.
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True, Messi could defy the odds and be rapidly freed from his Camp Nou contract. A club may lodge a bid too good for Barcelona to refuse. But there would still be plenty of work left to do.
Bonuses, image rights, and other complicated small print have to be navigated in sports contracts, especially with an athlete of Messi’s repute. Messi’s father and key advisor, Jorge, is also a notoriously tough negotiator.
Messi’s Barcelona contract earns him a guaranteed annual salary of €106.3 million after various bonuses, according to Football Leaks materials obtained by Der Spiegel. Those wages would immediately swell Manchester City’s payroll by 20%, Forbes estimates. Without a transfer fee, City may still need to offload players to ensure they don’t fall foul of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations.
Simply put, City striking a deal would require the glide and guile of a Messi dribble – an extremely rare set of skills.
The least burdensome way for Messi to wriggle free from Barcelona’s clutches would be via a gentleman’s agreement with the club’s embattled president, Josep Maria Bartomeu. Real Madrid chief Florentino Perez and Cristiano Ronaldo found a similar reconciliation, allowing for Ronaldo’s €100-million transfer to Juventus in 2018.
Ronaldo’s release clause was an unrealistic €1 billion, €300 million more than Messi’s.
“Real Madrid would today like to place on record its thanks to a player who has shown himself to be the best in the world and made his mark on one of the greatest periods in our club’s history and on the world game,” read Los Blancos’ statement marking Ronaldo’s sale.
Right now, a similarly amicable exit – or even an embittered exit, for that matter – seems a long way off for Messi.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee Titans safety Kenny Vaccaro started his virtual news conference by informing the media that he is shutting down all football talk this season.
Vaccaro feels that it’s only appropriate to discuss social injustice, systemic oppression, racism and police brutality in light of the recent events involving the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“I’m really not going to talk football when I come into these meetings in light of recent events that have happened around the country. For me and my platform, my duty is to speak on things that are happening, and that’s just my stance. I’m just not going to talk football this year,” Vaccaro said.
This comes a day after the Titans as a team decided not to practice, instead taking time to discuss how they can move forward to create change after the latest shooting of a Black man by police. Coach Mike Vrabel said one of the main reasons the team didn’t practice was because the Titans’ frustration that the shootings continue to happen has the team wanting to find ways to spark change.
Vaccaro gave a prelude to what the Titans players plan to do going forward.
“I don’t think sitting out a practice is going to stop police from killing Black men. The next step is getting into communities. We’re going to do something that’s not just a hashtag, not just a black square people posted on Instagram and thought it meant something. We’re not going to make this a movement, we’re going to make this a lifestyle,” Vaccaro said.
Their goal is to be a shining light to the outside world of how people need to be treated. One of the ideas that came out of the conversations when they didn’t practice Thursday was to create a “Zoom with a Titan” opportunity for the fans in Middle Tennessee to talk with the players.
