Will Lionel Messi join Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia’s league next season? According to AFP news agency, the PSG player has already agreed everything with a Saudi club and despite the denials of the player’s father and manager, the evidence seems to point to that. The coming month will therefore be a month full of anticipation for the football world, which is eager to witness once again the historic rivalry between the Argentinian (35 years old) and the Portuguese (37 years old).
“A deal has been made, he will play in Saudi Arabia. The contract is exceptional. It is huge,” the AFP reported yesterday, citing a Saudi source, without disclosing the name of the club that signed Messi. According to some international press, it concerns Al Hilal, coached by the Argentinian Ramón Díaz, who currently occupies fourth place in the Saudi league.
And the value of the contract is around 363 million euros a year, almost double the amount Ronaldo moved from Manchester to Riyadh in January. Although the years of the proposed deal with Messi have not been revealed, the annual value far exceeds the 200 million earned by CR7, who signed a two-and-a-half-year contract (until June 2025) in exchange for 500 million. That is why the Portuguese became the highest-paid footballer ever and started to top the list of the highest paid athletes, according to Forbes magazine, ahead of Messi and Mbappé, both from PSG.
But Al Hilal will not be alone in the race. a CBS Sports – who promoted Ronaldo’s first-hand journey into Saudi football despite successive denials – reported yesterday that Al Nassr has not given up on the idea of joining the two stars of world football in the same team. And he will also have made a proposal to the world champion for Argentina. Incidentally, according to CBS, the father, who is also Messi’s manager, met with Al Nassr, Al Hilal and Al Ittihad (trained by Nuno Espírito Santo) and with representatives of the Saudi government. Inter Miami (MLS) and Barcelona have also made offers.
Messi and Ronaldo were regarded as the best in the world for many years, spawning a media rivalry based on the visceral Barcelona-Real Madrid, and they are still in contention for the best-ever player title with Pelé and Maradona. They have met on the field 37 times! The first clash between the two players that marked nearly two decades of world football happened 14 years ago, in a match between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Messi has the advantage in direct confrontation (17 wins, nine draws and 11 defeats).
The Portuguese admitted rivalry with the Argentine had motivated him for years, while PSG’s number 10 admitted in a 2018 interview that “they had a very healthy rivalry” in which both wanted to outdo each other and that “was good”. for the viewer.”
More than enough reasons for fans to crave more. In January, it was already possible to get an idea of how idolized they are in Saudi Arabia, when they took on a private game sponsored by the country’s government between a team of players from Al Nassr and Al Hilal, led by by Ronaldo, and Paris Saint-Germain by Messi, played at King Fahd Stadium in Riyadh, which was won by the French (5-4). Messi scored a goal and CR7 scored twice.
Father and businessman deny agreement
The one that seemed to many to be the last dance between the two, after all it could have just been another chapter and have developments in a few months. This is despite the fact that his father, who is also Messi’s manager, denied the deal yesterday, as did Ronaldo and his entourage until Al Nassr made the takeover official in late December 2022. The decision will not be made until Lionel ends the championship with PSG,” guaranteed in a statement yesterday, Jorge Messi.
The Paris crest was simply a reminder that the number 10 shirt has a contract until June 30. But everyone already knows that he will not continue in Paris, but according to his father, it will only be “at the end of the season time to analyze” propose and then make a decision: “There are always rumors and many use Lionel’s name to gain fame, but the truth is only one and we can assure you that there is nothing. Not verbal, not agreed, not signed. And there won’t be before that season ends.”
For Jorge Messi, “it is disrespectful” to see how some media “knowingly and deliberately mislead” and “turn every malicious rumor into news” and without doing the contradictory “not to spoil the news”.
The fact that Messi recently went to Saudi Arabia, in a commitment he made in 2020, despite PSG (being penalized for it), to publicize tourism in the gulf country, fueled rumors of a trip to Riyadh, where he would repeat the duels with Cristiano Ronaldo, who joined Al Nassr in January.
As with CR7, the first news was always denied. Now it is still a few months to wait if Messi will really start an adventure in Saudi Arabia.
Source: DN
