Lionel Messi saga: Do boos at PSG mean return to Barcelona or face-off with Ronaldo in Saudi league?

PSG and Lionel Messi in the same sentence never quite had the same effect as Barcelona-Messi. More often than not, it was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Against Rennes, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but the pitch, giving away the ball cheaply while completing just a handful of dribbles, a far cry from the player who had won Argentina the World Cup.

It has been a dire season for him in club football with PSG already out of the French Cup and the Champions League. Even though he has chipped in with a sublime goal or a breath-taking assist every now and then, in games that matter, he has remained rather anonymous.

With his contract situation up in the air along with reports of his strained relationship with PSG coach Christophe Galtier, Messi looks to be on his way out of Paris after this season. Here’s where Barcelona, his former club, enter the picture again if rumours are to be believed. The reunion would be magical, a genuine emotional moment but chances of it happening are slim.

Paris St Germain’s Lionel Messi reacts. (Reuters)

Behind the glittery exterior of Barcelona, which still commands enough respect in attracting top names like moths to a flame, the Catalan club is in less-than-ideal state.

The Blaugrana will be unable to sign players until they raise at least £178m just to comply with the La Liga’s financial rules. They are in such a financial mess that they are already struggling to register their current players. There needs to be huge offloads but that also might not be enough to pay the Argentine superstar’s wages. Seeing that he was forced to leave the club due to their inability to afford his wages back in 2021, it’s difficult to imagine him coming back to his second home just yet.

Even his father Jorge Mendes, who is also his agent, said as much. “I don’t think he will return to (Barcelona),” he was quoted as saying by ESPN. “The conditions are not there.”

The aforementioned conditions are not just financial but also another ugly scandal Barcelona have found themselves embroiled in.

Barcelona are currently facing charges of corruption over alleged payments totalling €7.3m (£6.4m) to high-ranking Spanish referee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018. The accusations are against Barcelona itself, former Barcelona presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, and former Barcelona executives Óscar Grau and Albert Soler. With the club’s stocks at an all time low and their reputation taking a huge hit, it’s unlikely that a global icon like Messi will be keen to drown his own name in the quagmire.

You would then have to ask what next? Well, if rumours are to be believed, Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal are pretty keen on signing Messi to challenge rivals Al Nassr, who signed Cristiano Ronaldo last year. What’s more, they are even willing to pay Messi the same salary that Al Nassr is paying Ronaldo.

If the transfer does transpire, it’ll be a huge deal for the Asian football fraternity and a signal of intent from Saudi Arabia, who will have two modern icons playing in a league which was relatively unknown to the whole footballing world just 6 months back. But can Messi do it on a sandy, humid night in Saudi against Ronaldo? We’ll just have to wait to see how this story unfolds.