Summer Transfer Superthread

yeah he could end up in the City dressing room polishing Messis boots

Messi is to leave Barcelona. Just announced!

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2021/0805/1239257-barcelona-announces-lionel-messi-will-leave-the-club/

It wasn't though it was because of how the club's run. Let's be clear

The timing of the announcement is interesting.

It was announced yesterday that a new company is to be formed controlling all of La Liga’s business activities. CVC Partners , a private equity firm, have bought a 10% stake in the joint-venture for 2.7bn euro.

The €2.7 billion will be shared across the Spanish footballing pyramid and will allow clubs (most notably Barcelona) a much-needed influx of capital to register new signings and sort out financial issues.

However Barcelona are considering rejecting La Liga's new TV contract amid concerns over the length of the deal in question, 40 years.

Shortly after the Messi leaving announcement , Real Madrid announced that they had rejected a deal that would see CVC Capital Partners purchase a 10 per cent stake in La Liga for €2.7billion. 

In a statement, Real claim that the "agreement was reached without the involvement or knowledge of Real Madrid".

This will rumble on for a while yet.

Is it not becoming obvious yet that there are really just two clubs playing a different game to everyone else in Europe?

Are we just accepting that this is the case?

The amount of times we talk about transfers and we say 'only City and PSG can afford them'.

It's mental.

Football obviously isn't perfect. Just look at the Super League stuff, obviously. But it's actively really broken when this is how we so often talk about transfers.

It's all becoming a bit pointless. Eventually everyone else will just live off the scraps that the Saudis and Qataris leave them.

Confirmed by villa ceo fee was £100m.

Fergie was at the same thing in the 90s.

Why are chelsea left out of your claims constantly?

City are only paying £75k per week.

Eithad and Emirates then have offered a very lucrative sponsorship deal to cover the rest.

I bet City have more 40-60m signings than most other teams though.

It'd be interesting to see the overall cost of the squads when they are named for the start of the season.

Apparently PSG are already in talks with Messi. Thoughts of having Messi, Neymar and Mbappe on same team is fairly impressive

Where did ya read about Emirates? Considering etihad and Emirates are competitors and Emirates is dubai and etihad is Abu Dhabi then I'll be surprised if they have anything to do with it.

They want to win the CL badly. Between them and City.

I thought Spurs would have went for Ings regardless of whether Kane left or not.

I think it’ll be interesting to see Ramos and Messi play together, should Messi go there! Two captains of the biggest clubs in the world now on the one team.

interesting to hear Grealish had a release clause in his most recent Villa contract and that City triggered this clause.

Kane presumably could have negotiated something similar, but doesn't appear to have done so.

(as a United fan, I'd be happy to see City divert their interest from Kane to Messi; I think the latter has much higher potential to be a failure and disrupt the City squad).

In transfer news Juraj Kucka has joined Watford. Didnt think he was 35.

pep is so full of ****! the only reason they could afford grealish was that they brought in 60 millions pounds last summer from sales.

It's probably to eliminate competition, IMO.

Man City, PSG and Chelsea can afford those wages, but others can't. Maybe Man Utd as they have already shown a commitment to giving players undeserving very large (150k - 250k a week) contracts before achieving anything of note but in fairness do tend to save the extremely high wages (250k a week +) to players who do deserve those lucrative deals.

Man City are pricing others out of the game. Could other teams afford to pay £60m for Grealish? Yes, and there's about 6 or 7 clubs in the PL alone that could do that this summer if needed. How many can afford to pay him £370k a week on top of that? None. The competition is reduced straightaway. Don't think that Grealish is not telling his friends Madisson, Chilwell, Barkley, Alli etc in the whatsapp group what sort of wage he is on. He's not exactly the brightest person as it is, going by his previous exploits. The transfer is the main talking point in the league right now, and the money has everyone interested. A new bar is going to be set with wages for players who are not even the top players at their clubs.

Grealish being £100m is one thing, but it has now increased the price for other English players, especially in a league where HG players are needed. Leicester might have sold Maddison for £50m this summer. After this transfer, it could be closer to £70m as this is now the going rate for an attacking English midfielder. How much will West Ham ask for Declan Rice now, etc etc.

The default price in players is just going to increase again, and it further reduces the number of clubs that can and will be able to afford these transfer fees.