Backpass: Has anyone ever had as much power as Lionel Messi?
There’s a quote from years ago that comes to mind now and again when a star athlete signs a new mega-deal: it’s nice to be the guy getting the huge check, but the true wealth and power lies with the guy that is rich enough that he *signs* those big checks.
After it was reported this week that Lionel Messi had agreed to a 50 percent pay cut in order to stay at FC Barcelona, we can start to consider whether Messi’s level of both wealth and power make him a totally unique being in the history of sport.
Not since Michael Jordan has there been an iconic athlete who is universally renowned, well-known, and marketable.1 Like Jordan, you can find a bootleg Messi kit in the bazaars, souks, and street corner vendors in any city in the world, from Kuala Lumpur to Bamako and Brooklyn to Melbourne. Last time I traveled to Israel, I saw Messi backpacks and lunch boxes galore.
Messi earned between $100 million and $168.5 million a year on his last deal, based on various bonuses and incentives. Meanwhile his club, Barcelona, was undergoing severe financial turmoil - they are reportedly $1.42 billion in debt. Additionally, they are subject to a La Liga spending cap which is set based on the revenues of each team - a sort-of local version of FIFA’s Financial Fair Play rules which essentially require a team to base their player expenditures on club revenues, rather than wild and irresponsible spending gambits or a secret pipeline of cash from a petro-billionaire owner. If you read James Montague’s fantastic The Billionaires Club, it is certainly clear that the ultra-rich can certainly fudge some numbers and manipulate in sneaky ways to gain advantage. But ‘hey we’re broke but we’ll just keep spending like nuts’ is not that.
I raise all this to demonstrate that Messi’s decision is, deceptively, the most powerful move in sport - more powerful even than LeBron James’ ‘I’m taking my talents to South Beach’ moment. Messi could go to any club in the world, for whatever price that club could afford. On the high end, I imagine Manchester City, PSG, and some of the clubs in China would legitimately have paid him $200 million a year or more. MLS might have given him a Beckham-esque deal - come to the US and we’ll let you have an expansion franchise, valued at $400 million, for free. Messi is capable of leveraging his immense power to go from player to owner, if he so wishes. If he went to China, he could *make* that league, because TV broadcasters would absolutely have to show his games. If he came to the English Premier League, he would eclipse the existing stars ten-fold. Imagine a clutch of photographers and reporters shrugging their shoulders at Harry Kane or Mohammed Salah or Paul Pogba, because Messi was 10 feet away.
But instead of seeking fortune, Messi chose a pay cut. And the pay cut he made was one that might give Barca the ability to sign better role players to place around him - to give Messi the thing that he really wants - on more run at the Champions League trophy. Messi has four of them already, in addition to 10 La Liga trophies, an Olympic gold medal, and the most recent Copá America title.
This surprised me. Lionel Messi can have anything he wants - money, power, a new continent to conquer. But what he apparently wants is - he wants stability; and he wants to win with the club that raised him up from a boy.
It’s kind of perplexing. Maybe he’s a straightforward, simple guy. He’s already richer than Croesus , but he probably knows he can never spend all that money. I imagine he barely has to pay for things anyhow; what billionaire wouldn’t send a private jet to bring Messi to his lush hilltop island villa for a 70th birthday party? If he does a photoshoot in a $10,000 Armani suit, lord knows if he likes it, he’s keeping it.
The man wants for nothing. He can have anything he wants.
What he wants is to stay at Barcelona, and to win. And nothing more. To me, the ability to pass up better offers for the thing you know would truly make you content makes Lionel Messi perhaps the most powerful man on earth.
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What to make of the sale of Sam Vines
We knew it was coming. Sam Vines is young; he is a homegrown; and he is talented enough that he is ready to step onto a larger stage.2 It was almost a given that the laser-guided left footed target bomber from Colorado Springs was gonna be sold; and because of the principal of ‘buy low, sell high’, odds were good that the sale was going to be soon.
Royal Antwerp has reportedly offered $2 million for Vines. To be honest, it’s a little less than I had hoped. But the angels are in the details - The Athletic reported that the deal includes a sell-on clause that would give the Rapids a percentage if he is sold again. If that percentage is significant, and if Sam continues up the European club food chain, he could go for $8 to 15 million to a larger team, or even more (!). He also could… not.
Overall, it’s a good move for everyone. Sam Vines gets exposure to European clubs, and he gets a shot at Europa League or even Champions League play. Royal Antwerp played in Europa League the past two years, and their third-place finish in the Belgian A League means they are once again qualified for 2021-22.
What it means for the Rapids is less clear. Austin Trusty looked pretty good to me last week as a sub, although I don’t know if Robin Fraser has any long term plans for him there. There are other options. Jeremy Kelly was recently recalled from his loan deal with Phoenix Rising FC, although he is more naturally a right back. Steven Beitashour plays left back, although he hasn’t seen the pitch this year. Sebastian Anderson has played at that spot. Kellyn Acosta, of course, has also been pressed into service at left back - most memorably in the Rapids 3-0 defeat to Minnesota United in the 2020 MLS playoffs. Realistically, though, with Younes Namli injured, it would seem unlikely to take one of the team’s best midfielders and put him into service in defense.
Colorado could just rejigger the formation to deal with the problem. Going to the 5-3-2 formation3, the Rapids could put Trusty, Lalas Abubakar, and Danny Wilson at center back and play two wingbacks - perhaps Nicolas Benezet or Jonathan Lewis on the left and Keegan Rosenberry on the right. There are options, and we’ll probably try a bunch of them and see what works best.
The larger question is, of course, what we do with the money. Ideally the sale of a player at one position could help fund upgrades at other positions - potentially a more productive striker, or perhaps a midfield replacement for the injured Namli, or to buy a few young foreign talents that we might be able to develop here in Colorado. Of course, that might not be the play here. Colorado almost certainly loses money each year: the lack of a kit sponsor, not having a cable deal with several large broadcast companies (Dish and Comcast), having regularly recurring lean years of ticket sales at DSGP.
My fear, of course, is that the sale of our best player in the midst of a successful season will ultimately sink us for 2021. If the ultimate result of the Sam Vines sale is additional reinvestment in the club; the academy; a foreign player; etc., then it’s a good thing, even if it takes a few years to see to fruition. If the future of the Rapids is to be, in the words of Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane character in '“Moneyball” - ‘organ donors for the rich’, then the sale of Sam Vines will not be something to celebrate, but instead, something to lament.
One might make an impassioned argument for Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo is great, and popular, and he had the opportunity to take any deal he wanted when he became a free agent at the end of his Real Madrid contract in the summer of 2018. But he also allegedly committed rape in a Las Vegas hotel and has a standing warrant to turn over his DNA, should he return to the United States or the state of Nevada. That makes him decidedly unpopular in some circles.
One might also make the claim that LeBron James is as globally recognizable, powerful, and important as Messi. That’s an argument. My sense is that LeBron’s move to the LA Lakers as well as his age (he’s 36) and quality of play have caused him to fade significantly from the public imagination. Messi, at the age of 34, is still very much front page news every time he takes a walk or scratches his ear.
Vines is a singularly special player for Colorado. Read more here - Backpass: There's Center Back. There's Right Back. And then there's Vines Back.
Should we use the 5-3-2? We’ve covered that before here, folks.