> Rubiales underscores Messi’s concern about keeping the negotiations ‘confidential,‘ saying that, ‘if people find out, they are going to kill us,’ affecting the player’s reputation. However, Ceferin assured the former Spanish president that ‘not even his dog will find out.’
Lol. Ceferin really asking for it with a quote like that.
What I‘d like to know is who could possibly have taped and leaked the audio?
Seems like only a select few of Pique, Messi, Rubiales and Ceferin are involved.
The weird thing is that the materials released in that article seem to implicate Rubiales most of all. The stuff that implicates the players is mostly second- and third-hand hearsay: a horrible look but harder to use to bring them down legally, so if Rubiales is going scorched earth he's burning his own house first.
Given that this is years old and only coming out now, at a moment that our board is under scrutiny with all the Xavi will-they-won't-they, my first thought was maybe someone close to the club had leaked it as a distraction. That's been a move in the past. But I don't know that anyone in that group overlaps on the Venn diagram with people who would have access to the recording, so it's not a great explanation, either ...
You're not wrong on either count, that said - Rubiales knows his future in football is not bright so maybe he doesn't give a fuck about burning down his house if he gets to bring others down with him. Especially someone like Pique who has big ambitions but also didn't back him publicly (I don't remember what Pique said if anything after the WWC Final last year so I'm guessing he gave a politicians answer).
If that does turn out to be the case, kind of creepy that he just decided to secretly tape and record this conversation probably as a „just in case measure.“
Then again, considering it‘s Rubiales, him being a creep kind of tracks.
I suspect a lot of these kind of conversations are secretly taped by both parties for any number of reasons. Future blackmail, revenge, if they ever need to cut a deal, take your pick.
Apparently someone had access to or hacked his phone quite a long time ago. There have been many leaks regarding rubiales and Piqué' negotiation for the Super Copa to be held in SA. I'm surprised they took this long to find this.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1cx3104/comment/l50bpxm/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1cx3104/comment/l50bpxm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Only a few were involved in **asking**. But they were trying to get money for the entire first division, second division, third division, futsal, and womens leagues. Nowhere does it say just for a few players. So its really not as bad as people just reading the headline will think.
Yeah, Piqué seems likely to be involved in shady stuff.
Messi seems level-headed and nice, but I guess the key work here is *seems*. He is my favorite player and my childhood hero, but we don't really know him.
And, you know, he might even even level-headed and nice. But this is just a regular rich person dick move.
People don't understand shit. They are no way dodging taxes on purpose. It's too risky for them. The schemes are most likely legal or grey area, the tax agency makes an interpretation and acuses. If you fight and lose you go to jail. If you pay a fine you don't. Also, if a scheme changes, the contract stays the same, thus beginning to break the law unless you change the contract.
You can point to tax evasion and a million other shady sponsors, but how is maximizing his pay scummy? Players get low balled all the time, and many of them are on terrible contracts for years hoping that they have a breakout season. But just as quick, when they stop performing, fans and the club are the first to turn on them, call them overpaid, and kick them out of the club. Messi never forced Barca to pay him, and if he demanded a certain pay, the club, like they eventually did, could reject those demands and let him go.
It's such a football fan's biased perspective to expect an employee to sacrifice themselves for an employer, even if it's the employer's fault that they are in such a poor financial situation. Next time a world crisis happens, offer 50% of your income because you wouldn't want to be scummy or anything
It's ridiculous what the average fan expects of footballers. Infinite loyalty when fan and club loyalty is conditional on performance. Then when performance dips or the club fucks their own finances, players need to be humble and sacrifice their income for the love of the club. Such bullshit
Tax evasion is one of the most selfish things you can do in a social democracy.
These kinds of players earn millions per year. They are not counting breadcrumbs like most plebs, who need that tax money to finance the public transportation that carries them to work at the restaurants and hotels those players go to.
And I love Messi like crazy. For me he's indisputable the best with no one coming even close. It's not hate talk.
>From Luis Rubiales this is just par for the course
Messi has had done these money hundry deals for years. Tax evasion in Spain, renegotiating his contract every 2 years with Barcelona, signed for PSG when he could've signed anywhere in the world taking a paycut, signing his ambassador deal with Saudi Arabia, his current AppleTV/MLS deal.
Messi just gets a pass because he's Messi.
poor little Messi, he could have had a net worth of $700 million, now he's only got $650 million. these dickheads really do live on another planet to us.
***"Study hard, become doctor, engineer or a teacher.They are the one world needs.Dont idolize footballer,some of them are pure trash"*** - José Mourinho
What really struck me is that Messi went out for dinner. Instead of being mildly annoyed at the lack of privacy when fans started standing outside in a crowd, he reveled in the attention.
Yeah, superstars are just that. Living in a different reality.
I think it's because i've been around long enough to see literally every single member of the playing staff for my team move on and be replaced, but I can't help but feel they're mostly mercenaries at this point. Look at Raheem Sterling for example. Moved from Liverpool to city for money, moved from city to Chelsea for play time and probably some good Boehly Bucks.
EDIT: Maybe I didn't make my point great. If footballers want to move around for more money/career growth then crack on, but there's not many 'i'm stuck with this team through thick and thin' left.
> but there's not many 'i'm stuck with this team through thick and thin' left.
I don't think you need to be a total club legend like Gerrard or Lampard to be respected professional though. Milner moved from City to Liverpool and then to Brighton and I'm pretty sure he is well regarded by all fans of each club as being an exemplary player on and off the field.
“Not like me. I would never leave my company if someone offered me more. I am Ikea yellow and blue, through and through. Think of all the customers expecting to see my smile every day”
I dunno man, if IKEA is paying you 0.5 million a week, you'd still sound like a clown to turn down 1 million a week from Wal-Mart for the sake of your customers.
Someone has to do a study into what causes this mentality in rich people. It genuinely baffles me.
"Oh I have enough money to set me and my extended family up for multiple lifetimes, but I need more just cause" Like a dragon hoarding gold.
I don't even get the generational wealth thing, what should I care if my great-great-great grandchildren will be rich or not? If they're broke, they should be blaming it on their parents. Fuck them kids. Go to school and get a degree.
You haven't experienced poverty then, my grandfather was the ninth out of 10th children and was told flat out that he was not getting any inheritance, so when he grew up, he made it his life's mission to make sure that his lineage wouldn't have to experience poverty. He started to save for my college 20 years before I was even born.
You'll likely still be alive to see your grandkid, if you're lucky you might even see them grow up to be a fully grown adult.
I'm talking about great-great-great grandchildren here. There have only been a handful of those people in the world and they all lived well into their **hundreds**. It's very unlikely you or anyone in this subreddit will be alive to see their great-great-great grandchildren even be born, much less grow old enough to squander an inheritance.
Idk if this is true or not but basically someone explained it once well. If you have 1000 euroes and you found 1 euro on the ground you'd think it's neat. But lets say you randomly find 100 euros on the ground you'd be exstatic. The 100 euro for guys like this is what 1 euro is for you which basically causes them to chase more and more wealth cause they can't get sattisfaction from money as easily anymore.
Did you even read the article? Messi not only asked for his salary to be paid, he asked for the entire first team, second team, second b team, the women's team and the futsal team's salaries to be paid.
Look, i understand that Messi is greedy with Saudí Arabia sponsorship. But this was for the beneficia of the club as well as himself
Of course he didn’t read the article. He clicked into the comments and took the top comment at face value since it aligned with what he previously believed.
So Messi tried to get uefa to pay for the partial salary of only certain players like himself during Covid. If the discussions were made public they would claim Messi was trying to get uefa to pay for all players in order to save face. According to the leak Messi wanted nobody to know at all costs in order to save his reputation. This is similar to the WhatsApp leaks where Messi asks Barto to not cut his and Suarez’s salary during covid. Pretty shady stuff
For the Messi fanatics with zero reading comprehension:
Where does it show in the article that Messi asked for all those players to get their salaries paid? The article is so clearly saying the opposite I can believe I’m even having this discussion. Here are some excerpts:
Rubiales highlights the Argentinian's fear that the negotiations will be made public, revealing that "he is afraid that someone will know that we are taking care of the salary of the big players." Sources familiar with the negotiation explain to THE OBJECTIVE that "if this issue had come to light, they would have argued that it would also benefit players with lower incomes."
Judicial sources consulted by this newspaper indicate that there could be indications of alleged influence peddling, given that the players involved in the negotiations with Rubiales would benefit from this strategic plan, possibly obtaining more favorable conditions than the rest of their colleagues. For this reason, they insisted on the need to keep the agreement in the strictest confidentiality.
Where the “confusion” comes from is the part of the article that says on April 6th Rubiales proposed that most players get their salaries covered by Uefa. Nowhere does it say it’s because of Messi and the article clearly suggests Rubiales heard Messi’s selfish plea and decided to base his proposal off of that but would include most players as opposed to just the few.
Yeah but he also lobbied Ceferin to pay for all the ordinary staff who saw their salaries cut or were made redundant over the same period... Oh, hang on. He didn't.
In the whatsapps leaked in the article they talk about the money going to all the club from 1st division to 3rd division, algo including 1st women division and 1st indoor football division.
Nowhere they talk about the money going to only some players. That is just speculation from the writer.
>So Messi tried to get uefa to pay for the partial salary of only certain players like himself during Covid
According to the article, this "certain players like himself" included the entirety of the first, second, second B and third divisions, along with the female division and the futsal one:
>El 6 de abril, Rubiales remite a Ceferin su propuesta económica, en la cual sugiere que el 4% de los derechos de retransmisión de todos los partidos de la UEFA, anteriormente distribuidos de una manera específica entre las asociaciones nacionales, se reestructuren para destinar el 50% a compensar a los jugadores cuyos salarios se vieron reducidos a causa de la Covid-19.
>«La RFEF destinaría aproximadamente el 50% del total de los pagos solidarios al fondo de contingencia. El fondo cubriría la reducción salarial de los jugadores de **Primera División, Segunda División, Segunda División B, Tercera División, Fútbol Femenino y Futsal** -fútbol sala-. El otro 50% se distribuiría de acuerdo con las exigencias actuales exclusivamente entre los clubes que durante la crisis de la Covid-19 no acordaron reducciones salariales con sus jugadores (25% para clubes profesionales y 25% para clubes no profesionales). Este mecanismo se aplicaría durante el plazo necesario para cubrir total o significativamente la reducción salarial provocada a los jugadores (consideramos que ronda los 50 millones de euros)», expone el expresidente de la federación en una extensa propuesta.
Also, the article includes tons of hearsay and only one* of the allegedly leaked audio messages (from Rubiales of all people). I don't know how trustworthy the source is, but I'm gonna wait for more information to come out before jumping out to conclusions.
It is even worse, this article uses google translate to translate the conversations between rubiales and ceferin because some of his phrases in spanish makes no sense.
Yes, it’s Reddit. Most top comments are nonsense, they just get upvoted because they commented before someone could rebut the claims and people ate it up and upvoted it.
Welcome to the soccer subreddit. Plastic Real Madrid fans who can't even read or speak a word of Spanish upvote anything to make Messi and Barcelona look bad, including blatant lies.
>of only certain players like himself during Covid
I read the entire article and it looks like Rubiales kept saying to Ceferin that they'd pay "poor" players salaries as well, not only Messi/Piqué.
Did I miss anything? How is the below a strange thing? It's literally Rubiales asking to use 4% of TV rights to cover 50% of the wage reductions from all football players in the pandemic, and the other 50% would support teams that didn't enforce any wage reductions. It looks like initally Messi/Piqué were thinking about their own asses but Rubiales didn't phrase it this way to Ceferin, and extraordinary topics like Covid in 2020 require extraordinary measures too. I really don't see what the big deal is.
>El 6 de abril, Rubiales remite a Ceferin su propuesta económica, en la cual sugiere que el 4% de los derechos de retransmisión de todos los partidos de la UEFA, anteriormente distribuidos de una manera específica entre las asociaciones nacionales, se reestructuren para destinar el 50% a compensar a los jugadores cuyos salarios se vieron reducidos a causa de la Covid-19.
>«La RFEF destinaría aproximadamente el 50% del total de los pagos solidarios al fondo de contingencia. El fondo cubriría la reducción salarial de los jugadores de Primera División, Segunda División, Segunda División B, Tercera División, Fútbol Femenino y Futsal -fútbol sala-. El otro 50% se distribuiría de acuerdo con las exigencias actuales exclusivamente entre los clubes que durante la crisis de la Covid-19 no acordaron reducciones salariales con sus jugadores (25% para clubes profesionales y 25% para clubes no profesionales). Este mecanismo se aplicaría durante el plazo necesario para cubrir total o significativamente la reducción salarial provocada a los jugadores (consideramos que ronda los 50 millones de euros)», expone el expresidente de la federación en una extensa propuesta.
> Did I miss anything?
You are on reddit, expecting anyone to read the article would be pretty ridiculous.
Like you said, there's nothing on this article that says what OP said.
Not only that, if they are real quotes, it comes through the guy that literally lied and made up multiple things about what players said...
But now he's trustworthy...
IF the only public info out there is what is said in the article, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Messi/Piqué did in my ignorant opinion.
We have to consider this was allegedly in early april 2020, everybody on earth was worried about their salaries, can't judge Messi for claiming what he's entitled to earn. He ofc has powerful connections, and probably used them to enquire about the financial consequences of Covid and his own wage.
You could say that this has a very thin line with "traffic of influence", but if you start nitpicking what powerful people say between themselves you'll have to arrest them all at this point.
It always amazes when people talk about the players personalities as if they know them personally.
“Messi is humble while Ronaldo is arrogant” has always been one of the reasons why Messi is viewed in a better light even though nobody in the general public knows anything about either of them
My mom was a huge Pique fan cause she has an obsession with Shakira. So when I would tell her Pique was doing shady shit all the time she would tell me "he's just a good businessman".
Now she dislikes Pique and Barca.
I know the average person is as dumb as rocks and all but you’d think they would have learned by now that media is mostly propaganda.
They honestly should teach this in elementary school, very important for today’s world.
don't forget when he threw a temper tantrum and quit the national team just to come back when he calmed down. Also the panama papers stuff. Messi is only human and has his flaws like everyone else, but his squeaky clean PR as a shy good guy sometimes makes people forget this.
The national team stuff is different tbf, the afa were and continue to be a complete corrupt mess and he was emotional after falling just short 3 summers in row. This however is calculated self interest but people should never put anyone on a pedestal, no matter who they are.
> even though nobody in the general public knows anything about either of them
Which is exactly why I don't understand hero-worship of footballers
Obviously there's nothing wrong with cheering on the players who represent your club or your national team, and I'm sure plenty of them are good people, but when you absolutely obsess over players the way people have done for a long time over Messi you're just setting yourself up for disappointment
I don't understand hero worship of anyone, human beings are flawed and no one deserves to be put on a pedestal like that. Simply admire them as a footballer but don't go further than that.
100%. I do not understand how a human being can be reverential toward another. Always makes me cringe seeing fans flood players' cars outside stadiums, or seeing people bow to royalty. It's actual insanity, they're just people too lmao.
There are things you can admire about others, but you should never feel fundamentally subservient or lesser than anyone.
It's because Ronaldo was (is) outspoken through his career, while Messi wasn't. And.. well, what CR was saying was far from humble, though I would say it's not arrogance saying you're the best when you have achivment like his.
Add to it clubs they were representing: Real which positioned itself as pinnacle of football (again, for any other team it would be arrogant) and Barcelona with "more than a club" (though recent years shows that's not siding with common people, but rather admiting being money loundring operation /s). So again "arrogance" vs "humbleness".
And of course football generally like this narrative of "humble" vs "arrogant" for stars, heck Pele was simultanesly "humble guy" (in narrative against Maradona) and "arrogant guy" (in narrative against Garrincha).
So popular formula, media presence and club imige easily converged into opinions about this two.
How weird that you are yet to respond to the reply that clearly shows that in the article it states that Messi asked for the first team, second, second B team, the women's team and the fútbol one salarios to be paid.
But hey, that might go against your narrative and means you have to admit that not only were wrong but probably just read the title and formulated an opinion just from that. So i understand why you would not reply
Messi paid for his entire national team salaries on several occasions.
Barca under barto deserved to be distrusted. Any negotiation in 2020 was after 3 years of total fuck ups.
Messi has never been accused of rape
I read the numbers a few years back when he signed for PSG I think, it checks out. Unless I read made up numbers, they did. Barca, PSG, they made far more than what they paid him. Ronaldo too. So much it made it look like they were being robbed blind. Hope someone comes along with the numbers
Fans don’t tend to care much about these things as long as a player is performing.
Opposition fans might bring it up, but it doesn’t really have much effect outside of the terminally online.
It’s only an underperforming player that starts getting everything they do scrutinised.
Well it helps that till the last match he was head and shoulders above every player at Barcelona. And there are a lot of players who got overpaid like crazy and still are without much output
Would any fan really? Messi is the best ever or at worst, in the top 3 of the best ever and he played for their team. They'll rationalize a lot of things in his name. And it's not because they're Barca fans. It's because they're fans.
Football fans make this big deal about how this sport is different, special, a religion but it's no more immune from celebrity worship than any other entertainment product. If Messi was filmed eating human flesh outside of Camp Nou, the Barca fans would just say he has an eating disorder and it'd be no different for any one of the other top flight clubs.
It's amazing how much being quiet and discrete can do for your reputation when you have some talent. Imagine if Musk didn't ruin the "he is literally ironman" aura of his early career by letting people know how he actually is with his overly online addiction
Eh it's tricky.
Soccer might be a fairly isolated space in the grand scheme of it, but it's also where we all now to talk about it. I remember seeing someone the get absolutely torn up for mentioning that Messi was in the Panama Papers, and people shouldn't idolise his character outside of football.
Now here we are again, Messi being shown to be a very dodgy ol lad when it comes to making and protecting his money, but he's good at football so it won't matter.
> Soccer might be a fairly isolated space in the grand scheme of it, but it's also where we all now to talk about it.
The thing is reddit never ever gets the attention other social medias do because there is simply less people engaging. It's become more mainstream last 5-10 years but it's still not like Instagram/Facebook/Twitter level engagement ever.
This sub has 6 million subs and barely 10% of the 6 million at best use the subreddit. I think that's usually the higher end of the average.
So there's 600,000 people on this subreddit in reality because subs don't mean anything on reddit like they do youtube except it shows up on your front page.
That is the size of a middle sized youtube channel.
You have to consider those 600,000 or so people are also having their attention divided by individual posts.
Messi has a history of tax issues and trying to maximize his salary, I'm just not sure why it applies here (or il reading a bad translation).
The translations I've seen suggest that the negotiation is to use UEFA funds to pay out players from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd division, plus women's football, their full salaries.
Given that UEFA ostensibly exists to promote and manage international football in Europe, this seems like a perfectly good use of their funds.
The same year, he became a Saudi Arabia tourism ambassador and signed for PSG, the most hated club of this sub, and his fanboys still managed to develop new mental gymnastics moves to justify it lmao. They'll forget this as well.
Look at Maradona, he was even more of an absolute scumbag, and they still dedicated him a fucking church in Argentina.
If you're a football genius, anything can be ignored.
There seems to be no end to the signs of possible corruption in soccer. THE OBJECTIVE has exclusively obtained the messages and audios exchanged between then FC Barcelona players Gerard Piqué and Leo Messi with former Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin. These documents reveal attempts to "divert" funds from the European confederation to certain players to compensate for the loss of wages suffered as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.
The first conversation on this matter begins on April 2, 2020. Rubiales telephones Piqué, who replies that he will call him back in half an hour. In that telephone conversation -as this newspaper has been able to learn after analyzing the communications of the former RFEF president with Ceferin- Piqué, with Messi's authorization, expresses to Rubiales the Argentine player's concern about the significant reduction in his millionaire salary due to the coronavirus pandemic. A few days earlier, FC Barcelona had proposed a salary reduction of up to 70% for the squad in response to the health crisis, which also had an impact on the economy.
That same day, an hour after speaking with Piqué, that is, at 4:19 pm, Rubiales contacts the UEFA president and sends him an audio via WhatsApp, which is now reproduced by this newspaper. In the message, Rubiales acts as an intermediary and transmits to Ceferin the concern that Messi has expressed through Piqué. Rubiales raises the possibility of "using UEFA funds" to compensate the economic losses of the players, but both are aware that, if this is made public, it could negatively affect the footballers who seek to benefit from this agreement. For this reason, Rubiales emphasizes Leo Messi's concern about maintaining the "confidentiality" of the negotiations.
The former head of the federation points out: "They (referring to Piqué and Messi) told me clearly that, please, no one should know that we are talking about our money because, if people find out, they will kill us". And he underlines: "I am sending you this audio with a message from Leo Messi. It is my voice, but his message. The UEFA president calms him down and assures him that "not even his dog will find out".
Rubiales then suggests to Ceferin that RFEF funds from UEFA could be redirected in a way that would benefit Leo Messi and other affected players. "I say it is important for us to have Messi and the rest with us. No need to put money in. We just change the destination and continue to give money to young clubs...", he says.
After this exchange of WhatsApp messages between Ceferin and Rubiales, the former president of the federation contacts five minutes later with the former Barcelona defender, conveying his desire to "be able to help them". According to the messages, a three-way phone call was made between Piqué, Rubiales and Messi. In this conversation, according to sources consulted, they discussed the proposal that the former president of the RFEF should present to the Slovenian sports leader to compensate some of the professional footballers for the economic losses caused by Covid-19.
Two days after this three-way conversation, on April 4, 2020, Rubiales communicates again with Ceferin via WhatsApp. According to the messages, the two had previously discussed how to compensate the players' salary losses. In his message, the former federation president asks Ceferin if he has considered the proposal and suggests that, should he carry it out, "he should tell Leo Messi at the right time." Rubiales highlights the Argentine's fear that the negotiations will be made public, revealing that "he is afraid that someone will know that we are looking after the salary of the great players."
Sources familiar with the negotiation explain to THE OBJECTIVE that "if this matter had come to light, they would have argued that it would also benefit players with lower incomes."
Rubiales sends Piqué screenshots of the conversations held with Ceferin, and the former Azulgrana player shares them with his teammate Messi. In this way, all those involved in the negotiations are kept abreast of developments in real time.
On April 6, Rubiales sends Ceferin his financial proposal, in which he suggests that 4% of the broadcasting rights for all UEFA matches, previously distributed in a specific way among the national associations, be restructured to allocate 50% to compensate players whose salaries were reduced because of Covid-19.
"The RFEF would allocate approximately 50% of the total solidarity payments to the contingency fund. The fund would cover the salary reduction for players in the First Division, Second Division, Second Division B, Third Division, Women's Soccer and Futsal - futsal. The other 50% would be distributed in accordance with current requirements exclusively among the clubs that during the Covid-19 crisis did not agree to salary reductions with their players (25% for professional clubs and 25% for non-professional clubs). This mechanism would be applied during the period necessary to cover all or significantly the salary reduction caused to the players (we consider it to be around 50 million euros)," states the former president of the federation in an extensive proposal.
Judicial sources consulted by this newspaper point out that there could be indications of alleged influence peddling, given that the players involved in the negotiations with Rubiales would benefit from this strategic plan, possibly obtaining more favorable conditions than the rest of their teammates. For this reason, they insisted on the need to keep the agreement in the strictest confidence.
Yeah, this didn’t translate to well really.
In this context, "young clubs" refers to smaller, less established clubs than Barça and the Madrid teams. Rubiales seems to suggest that instead of directly giving money to established star players like Messi, the funds could be redirected to support these smaller clubs, which in turn might benefit players indirectly by maintaining the overall ecosystem of football development.
This is close to a translation that I read.
Feels like there's a lot of outrage here, but this seems really not that shady to me?
Yes, making millionaire footballers whole during pandemic isn't exactly the highest priority, but certainly picking up the tab for 2nd and 3rd division and women's is a noble enough outcome, right?
Pretend to be shocked that Pique talked about how politics is discussed at Bernabeu VIP boxes (as if half of *Generalitat* parliament isn’t at Camp Nou at most matches) meanwhile he was doing financial gymnastics with Spanish Supercup to benefit himself and now influencing UEFA board to benefit him again.
The "Hey, if I'm doing it, probably the others are doing it too, so let me accuse them before they accuse me" mentality.
I feel that we can see it so much in many domains, especially politics.
>he was doing financial gymnastics with Spanish Supercup to benefit himself
Pique was having a multi million deal partnership with the president of RFEF while still an active Barça player.
Gently reminder that spanish referees are under the RFEF. Not La Liga. Not Tebas. Not Florentino. The RFEF, Spain FA.
Piqué's buddy and business partner, was the president of RFEF. Really cant even think of a more blatant conflict of interest.
And no one, including this sub, gave a fuck until the kissgate. Its surreal.
He may be corrupt, but he might be a good president. He’s seen terrible presidents come and go and he has enough money, goodwill and backing to be there for a while. He could be very successful.
Yeah true, would be a shame to lump many football clubs in with them. Football is a clean sport. City are clean, just like half of Serie A that one time. Or pretty much all the countries that get a World Cup. Or big Sam that one time. It’s all clean .
There's no mention of how many from the brief research I did, but Barca did report "significant reductions" over lack of working days during the pandemic.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/barcelona-wage-cut-coronavirus-update-messi-a9429466.html
What's more interesting is the public image Messi and co put out, where (allegedly) most players agreed to a 70% wage cut and Pique too (under the guise of loving Barcelona), took two significant wage cuts over 2 seasons... all whilst this was happening in the background.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52092809#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17162902510396&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fsport%2Ffootball%2F52092809
I see, you are not familiar with this stuff, when caught in anything shady/ilegal you blame it first on Real Madrid, then on Florentino Pérez and last on Franco.
“Well if Real doesnt take all the money for themselves! La Liga could be save!”
“Perez is rich, dont tell me he won’t this stuff too”
“Real Marid is not innocent!! They do shady stuff too!”
…and so on
Summary in English:
Leaked messages reveal negotiations between Messi, Rubiales, and Piqué to divert UEFA funds to compensate for COVID-19 salary losses
• Leaked messages and audios show discussions between former FC Barcelona players Gerard Piqué and Leo Messi, former Spanish Football Federation President Luis Rubiales, and UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin about diverting UEFA funds to compensate for players' salary losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Rubiales acted as an intermediary, conveying Messi's concerns to Ceferin and suggesting the use of UEFA funds while emphasizing the need for confidentiality.
• Piqué and Messi were concerned about the potential public backlash if the negotiations were revealed.
• Rubiales proposed restructuring UEFA broadcasting rights to allocate 50% of the funds to compensate affected players, including those from lower divisions and women's football.
• Judicial sources suggest indications of potential influence peddling, as the involved players could have gained more favorable conditions than others.
https://theobjective.com/espana/2024-05-21/messi-rubiales-pique-ceferin-fondos-uefa/
This thread is literally downvoted by a lot given the 95%. People worship is such a disease.
Also fucking ultra rich people might as wel be aliens. Their brain has evolved to not find 100s of millions enough to have, they need more.
Hey, I read the translation but feel I am missing something causing the outrage here. Is it just saying they went to UEFA to try to get funds to help cover player salaries during covid or did I miss something?
I have 0 doubts that Rubiales would had been Caferin replacement in EUFA.
Thanks god that he kissed goodbye that chance
Well played
> Rubiales underscores Messi’s concern about keeping the negotiations ‘confidential,‘ saying that, ‘if people find out, they are going to kill us,’ affecting the player’s reputation. However, Ceferin assured the former Spanish president that ‘not even his dog will find out.’ Lol. Ceferin really asking for it with a quote like that. What I‘d like to know is who could possibly have taped and leaked the audio? Seems like only a select few of Pique, Messi, Rubiales and Ceferin are involved.
My instinct says Rubiales going scorched earth and trying to bring everyone down with him he can
The weird thing is that the materials released in that article seem to implicate Rubiales most of all. The stuff that implicates the players is mostly second- and third-hand hearsay: a horrible look but harder to use to bring them down legally, so if Rubiales is going scorched earth he's burning his own house first. Given that this is years old and only coming out now, at a moment that our board is under scrutiny with all the Xavi will-they-won't-they, my first thought was maybe someone close to the club had leaked it as a distraction. That's been a move in the past. But I don't know that anyone in that group overlaps on the Venn diagram with people who would have access to the recording, so it's not a great explanation, either ...
You're not wrong on either count, that said - Rubiales knows his future in football is not bright so maybe he doesn't give a fuck about burning down his house if he gets to bring others down with him. Especially someone like Pique who has big ambitions but also didn't back him publicly (I don't remember what Pique said if anything after the WWC Final last year so I'm guessing he gave a politicians answer).
Rubiales is also an absolute idiot
If that does turn out to be the case, kind of creepy that he just decided to secretly tape and record this conversation probably as a „just in case measure.“ Then again, considering it‘s Rubiales, him being a creep kind of tracks.
I suspect a lot of these kind of conversations are secretly taped by both parties for any number of reasons. Future blackmail, revenge, if they ever need to cut a deal, take your pick.
remind me of The Departed where Jack Nicholson’s mob boss character records all his convos and is actually an FBI informant
Rubiales is balls deep in investigations, I'm guessing this was leaked by people involved in his case
Apparently someone had access to or hacked his phone quite a long time ago. There have been many leaks regarding rubiales and Piqué' negotiation for the Super Copa to be held in SA. I'm surprised they took this long to find this.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1cx3104/comment/l50bpxm/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1cx3104/comment/l50bpxm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Only a few were involved in **asking**. But they were trying to get money for the entire first division, second division, third division, futsal, and womens leagues. Nowhere does it say just for a few players. So its really not as bad as people just reading the headline will think.
Disappointing if true. From Luis Rubiales this is just par for the course. I expect to see much worse from Gerard Pique down the road.
Yeah Piqué has the makings of a FIFA/RFEF/Barça executive, in that he's shady af with money
Just a normal Barca player then
Yeah, Piqué seems likely to be involved in shady stuff. Messi seems level-headed and nice, but I guess the key work here is *seems*. He is my favorite player and my childhood hero, but we don't really know him. And, you know, he might even even level-headed and nice. But this is just a regular rich person dick move.
Messi has been scummy for years. Tax dodging and trying to keep his pay at max from Barca during Covid.
Tax dodging was obligatory for every top player in Spain from 2010-2015
With regards to the spanish government yes. Messi was in the Panama papers, too
People don't understand shit. They are no way dodging taxes on purpose. It's too risky for them. The schemes are most likely legal or grey area, the tax agency makes an interpretation and acuses. If you fight and lose you go to jail. If you pay a fine you don't. Also, if a scheme changes, the contract stays the same, thus beginning to break the law unless you change the contract.
how can you be reasonable bro, you're on the soccer sub
You can point to tax evasion and a million other shady sponsors, but how is maximizing his pay scummy? Players get low balled all the time, and many of them are on terrible contracts for years hoping that they have a breakout season. But just as quick, when they stop performing, fans and the club are the first to turn on them, call them overpaid, and kick them out of the club. Messi never forced Barca to pay him, and if he demanded a certain pay, the club, like they eventually did, could reject those demands and let him go. It's such a football fan's biased perspective to expect an employee to sacrifice themselves for an employer, even if it's the employer's fault that they are in such a poor financial situation. Next time a world crisis happens, offer 50% of your income because you wouldn't want to be scummy or anything It's ridiculous what the average fan expects of footballers. Infinite loyalty when fan and club loyalty is conditional on performance. Then when performance dips or the club fucks their own finances, players need to be humble and sacrifice their income for the love of the club. Such bullshit
Tax evasion is one of the most selfish things you can do in a social democracy. These kinds of players earn millions per year. They are not counting breadcrumbs like most plebs, who need that tax money to finance the public transportation that carries them to work at the restaurants and hotels those players go to. And I love Messi like crazy. For me he's indisputable the best with no one coming even close. It's not hate talk.
It’s more than sports when you’re loved and it’s just a business when you’re hated
Messi gets a pass because he's amazing but he's just as much of a crook.
>From Luis Rubiales this is just par for the course Messi has had done these money hundry deals for years. Tax evasion in Spain, renegotiating his contract every 2 years with Barcelona, signed for PSG when he could've signed anywhere in the world taking a paycut, signing his ambassador deal with Saudi Arabia, his current AppleTV/MLS deal. Messi just gets a pass because he's Messi.
poor little Messi, he could have had a net worth of $700 million, now he's only got $650 million. these dickheads really do live on another planet to us.
Football heroes to us but in the end they're all just greedy and money hungry cunts
***"Study hard, become doctor, engineer or a teacher.They are the one world needs.Dont idolize footballer,some of them are pure trash"*** - José Mourinho
*another* based Mourinho quote.
What really struck me is that Messi went out for dinner. Instead of being mildly annoyed at the lack of privacy when fans started standing outside in a crowd, he reveled in the attention. Yeah, superstars are just that. Living in a different reality.
I mean, you kinda have to. You can't really be a "superstar" unless you at least tolerate the crowds.
I think it's because i've been around long enough to see literally every single member of the playing staff for my team move on and be replaced, but I can't help but feel they're mostly mercenaries at this point. Look at Raheem Sterling for example. Moved from Liverpool to city for money, moved from city to Chelsea for play time and probably some good Boehly Bucks. EDIT: Maybe I didn't make my point great. If footballers want to move around for more money/career growth then crack on, but there's not many 'i'm stuck with this team through thick and thin' left.
> but there's not many 'i'm stuck with this team through thick and thin' left. I don't think you need to be a total club legend like Gerrard or Lampard to be respected professional though. Milner moved from City to Liverpool and then to Brighton and I'm pretty sure he is well regarded by all fans of each club as being an exemplary player on and off the field.
“Not like me. I would never leave my company if someone offered me more. I am Ikea yellow and blue, through and through. Think of all the customers expecting to see my smile every day”
Dunno man IKEA isn't paying me half a million a week lmao
I dunno man, if IKEA is paying you 0.5 million a week, you'd still sound like a clown to turn down 1 million a week from Wal-Mart for the sake of your customers.
Under your definition all workers are mercenaries
Like wtf does he need that he can't already have?
It stops being about needs at some point, it becomes like reaching a high score for these people
"High score my ass" in chris tucker's voice
So his great great great grand children can have 10 yacht instead of 5
Futbol Club Barcelona
Someone has to do a study into what causes this mentality in rich people. It genuinely baffles me. "Oh I have enough money to set me and my extended family up for multiple lifetimes, but I need more just cause" Like a dragon hoarding gold.
I don't even get the generational wealth thing, what should I care if my great-great-great grandchildren will be rich or not? If they're broke, they should be blaming it on their parents. Fuck them kids. Go to school and get a degree.
You haven't experienced poverty then, my grandfather was the ninth out of 10th children and was told flat out that he was not getting any inheritance, so when he grew up, he made it his life's mission to make sure that his lineage wouldn't have to experience poverty. He started to save for my college 20 years before I was even born.
You'll likely still be alive to see your grandkid, if you're lucky you might even see them grow up to be a fully grown adult. I'm talking about great-great-great grandchildren here. There have only been a handful of those people in the world and they all lived well into their **hundreds**. It's very unlikely you or anyone in this subreddit will be alive to see their great-great-great grandchildren even be born, much less grow old enough to squander an inheritance.
Idk if this is true or not but basically someone explained it once well. If you have 1000 euroes and you found 1 euro on the ground you'd think it's neat. But lets say you randomly find 100 euros on the ground you'd be exstatic. The 100 euro for guys like this is what 1 euro is for you which basically causes them to chase more and more wealth cause they can't get sattisfaction from money as easily anymore.
And the funny/sad thing is that pesants are the ones paying those salaries.
Did you even read the article? Messi not only asked for his salary to be paid, he asked for the entire first team, second team, second b team, the women's team and the futsal team's salaries to be paid. Look, i understand that Messi is greedy with Saudí Arabia sponsorship. But this was for the beneficia of the club as well as himself
Of course he didn’t read the article. He clicked into the comments and took the top comment at face value since it aligned with what he previously believed.
of course he didn't, nor did any of the over 1000 (embarrassing) people who upvoted this shite
No one is reading it. They are just taking their chance to hate on Messi.
So Messi tried to get uefa to pay for the partial salary of only certain players like himself during Covid. If the discussions were made public they would claim Messi was trying to get uefa to pay for all players in order to save face. According to the leak Messi wanted nobody to know at all costs in order to save his reputation. This is similar to the WhatsApp leaks where Messi asks Barto to not cut his and Suarez’s salary during covid. Pretty shady stuff For the Messi fanatics with zero reading comprehension: Where does it show in the article that Messi asked for all those players to get their salaries paid? The article is so clearly saying the opposite I can believe I’m even having this discussion. Here are some excerpts: Rubiales highlights the Argentinian's fear that the negotiations will be made public, revealing that "he is afraid that someone will know that we are taking care of the salary of the big players." Sources familiar with the negotiation explain to THE OBJECTIVE that "if this issue had come to light, they would have argued that it would also benefit players with lower incomes." Judicial sources consulted by this newspaper indicate that there could be indications of alleged influence peddling, given that the players involved in the negotiations with Rubiales would benefit from this strategic plan, possibly obtaining more favorable conditions than the rest of their colleagues. For this reason, they insisted on the need to keep the agreement in the strictest confidentiality. Where the “confusion” comes from is the part of the article that says on April 6th Rubiales proposed that most players get their salaries covered by Uefa. Nowhere does it say it’s because of Messi and the article clearly suggests Rubiales heard Messi’s selfish plea and decided to base his proposal off of that but would include most players as opposed to just the few.
the little dictator strikes again
Not a good look overall.
Yes, but Ronaldo didn't hug Bale.
Damn this takes me back. It's been what 8-9 years? Fuckin hell.
he hugged a particular lady in Vegas a bit too tight though
Yea all he did was rape a woman 😡
What number should I google to get more info on this?
messi 14
Ronaldo took slavery money. Both are extraordinary players but shitty men
So did Messi when he joined PSG. He's also Saudi Arabia's ambassador apparently.
Well, Messi did it too
The word “betrayal” was used
Ronaldo goat
wouldn’t take it that far
alleged rapist
Seriously, just don't worship any of these dickheads. Except Santi cazorla. He seems like a good dude.
My friend, is ok no?
Imagine it was Ronaldo 👀
Are you implying that Official Saudi Arabia Tourism Ambassador Lionel Messi might not be the most ethical and transparent of people? Heresy.
The good little boy from Rosario? Surely not. Must be mistake.
Yeah but he also lobbied Ceferin to pay for all the ordinary staff who saw their salaries cut or were made redundant over the same period... Oh, hang on. He didn't.
In the whatsapps leaked in the article they talk about the money going to all the club from 1st division to 3rd division, algo including 1st women division and 1st indoor football division. Nowhere they talk about the money going to only some players. That is just speculation from the writer.
>So Messi tried to get uefa to pay for the partial salary of only certain players like himself during Covid According to the article, this "certain players like himself" included the entirety of the first, second, second B and third divisions, along with the female division and the futsal one: >El 6 de abril, Rubiales remite a Ceferin su propuesta económica, en la cual sugiere que el 4% de los derechos de retransmisión de todos los partidos de la UEFA, anteriormente distribuidos de una manera específica entre las asociaciones nacionales, se reestructuren para destinar el 50% a compensar a los jugadores cuyos salarios se vieron reducidos a causa de la Covid-19. >«La RFEF destinaría aproximadamente el 50% del total de los pagos solidarios al fondo de contingencia. El fondo cubriría la reducción salarial de los jugadores de **Primera División, Segunda División, Segunda División B, Tercera División, Fútbol Femenino y Futsal** -fútbol sala-. El otro 50% se distribuiría de acuerdo con las exigencias actuales exclusivamente entre los clubes que durante la crisis de la Covid-19 no acordaron reducciones salariales con sus jugadores (25% para clubes profesionales y 25% para clubes no profesionales). Este mecanismo se aplicaría durante el plazo necesario para cubrir total o significativamente la reducción salarial provocada a los jugadores (consideramos que ronda los 50 millones de euros)», expone el expresidente de la federación en una extensa propuesta. Also, the article includes tons of hearsay and only one* of the allegedly leaked audio messages (from Rubiales of all people). I don't know how trustworthy the source is, but I'm gonna wait for more information to come out before jumping out to conclusions.
LMAO so the top comment is just a blatant lie and everyone is eating it up?
Also keep in mind half these fuckwits can't read in the original publication language. Eso les pasa por ser huevones.
It is even worse, this article uses google translate to translate the conversations between rubiales and ceferin because some of his phrases in spanish makes no sense.
This Is r/soccer. Of course people upvote lies, most of them are fucking stupid.
>most of them are fucking stupid. And that's putting it nicely
Yes, it’s Reddit. Most top comments are nonsense, they just get upvoted because they commented before someone could rebut the claims and people ate it up and upvoted it.
Welcome to the soccer subreddit. Plastic Real Madrid fans who can't even read or speak a word of Spanish upvote anything to make Messi and Barcelona look bad, including blatant lies.
You act like other fans don't do the same to other teams they don't like. This isn't an exclusive thing only Real fans do
Real fans are insanely over represented here. Like this sub is crazy Madrid biased. And I'm not even a Barcelona fan, it's just how it is.
> Plastic Real Madrid fans Is South Africa closer to Orlando than the Yanks are to Madrid?
I can't believe all those Real Madrid flairs lied to me
>of only certain players like himself during Covid I read the entire article and it looks like Rubiales kept saying to Ceferin that they'd pay "poor" players salaries as well, not only Messi/Piqué. Did I miss anything? How is the below a strange thing? It's literally Rubiales asking to use 4% of TV rights to cover 50% of the wage reductions from all football players in the pandemic, and the other 50% would support teams that didn't enforce any wage reductions. It looks like initally Messi/Piqué were thinking about their own asses but Rubiales didn't phrase it this way to Ceferin, and extraordinary topics like Covid in 2020 require extraordinary measures too. I really don't see what the big deal is. >El 6 de abril, Rubiales remite a Ceferin su propuesta económica, en la cual sugiere que el 4% de los derechos de retransmisión de todos los partidos de la UEFA, anteriormente distribuidos de una manera específica entre las asociaciones nacionales, se reestructuren para destinar el 50% a compensar a los jugadores cuyos salarios se vieron reducidos a causa de la Covid-19. >«La RFEF destinaría aproximadamente el 50% del total de los pagos solidarios al fondo de contingencia. El fondo cubriría la reducción salarial de los jugadores de Primera División, Segunda División, Segunda División B, Tercera División, Fútbol Femenino y Futsal -fútbol sala-. El otro 50% se distribuiría de acuerdo con las exigencias actuales exclusivamente entre los clubes que durante la crisis de la Covid-19 no acordaron reducciones salariales con sus jugadores (25% para clubes profesionales y 25% para clubes no profesionales). Este mecanismo se aplicaría durante el plazo necesario para cubrir total o significativamente la reducción salarial provocada a los jugadores (consideramos que ronda los 50 millones de euros)», expone el expresidente de la federación en una extensa propuesta.
> Did I miss anything? You are on reddit, expecting anyone to read the article would be pretty ridiculous. Like you said, there's nothing on this article that says what OP said. Not only that, if they are real quotes, it comes through the guy that literally lied and made up multiple things about what players said... But now he's trustworthy...
IF the only public info out there is what is said in the article, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Messi/Piqué did in my ignorant opinion. We have to consider this was allegedly in early april 2020, everybody on earth was worried about their salaries, can't judge Messi for claiming what he's entitled to earn. He ofc has powerful connections, and probably used them to enquire about the financial consequences of Covid and his own wage. You could say that this has a very thin line with "traffic of influence", but if you start nitpicking what powerful people say between themselves you'll have to arrest them all at this point.
Too late. Top comments are already making up conspiracies and narratives against the media
It always amazes when people talk about the players personalities as if they know them personally. “Messi is humble while Ronaldo is arrogant” has always been one of the reasons why Messi is viewed in a better light even though nobody in the general public knows anything about either of them
My mom was a huge Pique fan cause she has an obsession with Shakira. So when I would tell her Pique was doing shady shit all the time she would tell me "he's just a good businessman". Now she dislikes Pique and Barca.
Corruption stuff aside… He cheated on Shakira ffs.
[удалено]
I know the average person is as dumb as rocks and all but you’d think they would have learned by now that media is mostly propaganda. They honestly should teach this in elementary school, very important for today’s world.
Lol if that was how it was propaganda would cease to exist.
don't forget when he threw a temper tantrum and quit the national team just to come back when he calmed down. Also the panama papers stuff. Messi is only human and has his flaws like everyone else, but his squeaky clean PR as a shy good guy sometimes makes people forget this.
The national team stuff is different tbf, the afa were and continue to be a complete corrupt mess and he was emotional after falling just short 3 summers in row. This however is calculated self interest but people should never put anyone on a pedestal, no matter who they are.
Tf does the national team retirement have to do with this
I think bc mostly Messi stays quite and Ronaldo just speaks whatever he thinks.
> even though nobody in the general public knows anything about either of them Which is exactly why I don't understand hero-worship of footballers Obviously there's nothing wrong with cheering on the players who represent your club or your national team, and I'm sure plenty of them are good people, but when you absolutely obsess over players the way people have done for a long time over Messi you're just setting yourself up for disappointment
I don't understand hero worship of anyone, human beings are flawed and no one deserves to be put on a pedestal like that. Simply admire them as a footballer but don't go further than that.
100%. I do not understand how a human being can be reverential toward another. Always makes me cringe seeing fans flood players' cars outside stadiums, or seeing people bow to royalty. It's actual insanity, they're just people too lmao. There are things you can admire about others, but you should never feel fundamentally subservient or lesser than anyone.
As a neutral in the race I'll absolutely never trust anything or anyone from Barcelona.
It's because Ronaldo was (is) outspoken through his career, while Messi wasn't. And.. well, what CR was saying was far from humble, though I would say it's not arrogance saying you're the best when you have achivment like his. Add to it clubs they were representing: Real which positioned itself as pinnacle of football (again, for any other team it would be arrogant) and Barcelona with "more than a club" (though recent years shows that's not siding with common people, but rather admiting being money loundring operation /s). So again "arrogance" vs "humbleness". And of course football generally like this narrative of "humble" vs "arrogant" for stars, heck Pele was simultanesly "humble guy" (in narrative against Maradona) and "arrogant guy" (in narrative against Garrincha). So popular formula, media presence and club imige easily converged into opinions about this two.
I don't think it's inaccurate, it's more the fact people falsely Believe quiet and shy people are good people when there's no correlation
It says in the article that they were seeking compensation for all the players though? My spanish is a bit spotty so maybe I am misunderstanding it
How weird that you are yet to respond to the reply that clearly shows that in the article it states that Messi asked for the first team, second, second B team, the women's team and the fútbol one salarios to be paid. But hey, that might go against your narrative and means you have to admit that not only were wrong but probably just read the title and formulated an opinion just from that. So i understand why you would not reply
Messi paid for his entire national team salaries on several occasions. Barca under barto deserved to be distrusted. Any negotiation in 2020 was after 3 years of total fuck ups. Messi has never been accused of rape
Anuló the fucking mufa on your last sentence.
So the secret to be arguably the greatest player of all time isn't wanting to be all time great but to be the richest guy in the world.
I kinda understand…….but also don’t really understand why Barca fans don’t even have at least a tiny bit of animosity for Messi
672 goals and 266 assists in 768 games buys you a lot of goodwill.
While bringing multiple trophies too
And money. People always say he brings in to the club three times more than what he's paid but I'm not sure if it's a myth or reality.
I read the numbers a few years back when he signed for PSG I think, it checks out. Unless I read made up numbers, they did. Barca, PSG, they made far more than what they paid him. Ronaldo too. So much it made it look like they were being robbed blind. Hope someone comes along with the numbers
also easier to forgive a few million for a guy who probably generated billions for the club over the years
Thems are rookie numbers
Time will tell if it was a good investment. Barcelona managed that poorly.
Fans don’t tend to care much about these things as long as a player is performing. Opposition fans might bring it up, but it doesn’t really have much effect outside of the terminally online. It’s only an underperforming player that starts getting everything they do scrutinised.
Some club legends have got away with murder over the years and they’re still regarded really well. Doesn’t matter as long as you put the numbers up
Man had me looking forward to weekend games my whole teenage years and early adulthood. It really is that simple.
Well it helps that till the last match he was head and shoulders above every player at Barcelona. And there are a lot of players who got overpaid like crazy and still are without much output
Would any fan really? Messi is the best ever or at worst, in the top 3 of the best ever and he played for their team. They'll rationalize a lot of things in his name. And it's not because they're Barca fans. It's because they're fans. Football fans make this big deal about how this sport is different, special, a religion but it's no more immune from celebrity worship than any other entertainment product. If Messi was filmed eating human flesh outside of Camp Nou, the Barca fans would just say he has an eating disorder and it'd be no different for any one of the other top flight clubs.
Any Barca fan who hates on Messi for wanting to get paid is a fucking idiot. He has proven himself to be worth it.
Why would they? Go through Barcelona's trophy cabinet before and after Messi.
Pequeno dictator, The Sleazebag, and the ultracapitalist walks into a bar
Hey! Got any grapes? Then he dribbled away~
Disco Elysium 2 leak
Jesus, imagine having a networth of $500 million and still want exemption for full wage during a global pandemic.
Messi has always been dodgy when it comes to money. For some reason he gets away with it and receives no criticism
He learn how to "shut up and dribble"
It's amazing how much being quiet and discrete can do for your reputation when you have some talent. Imagine if Musk didn't ruin the "he is literally ironman" aura of his early career by letting people know how he actually is with his overly online addiction
He has insanely good PR, backed by two corrupt nations - Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
and r/soccer
In the grand scheme lf things r/soccer means less than a ockroach tbh. A little inconvenient pest
Eh it's tricky. Soccer might be a fairly isolated space in the grand scheme of it, but it's also where we all now to talk about it. I remember seeing someone the get absolutely torn up for mentioning that Messi was in the Panama Papers, and people shouldn't idolise his character outside of football. Now here we are again, Messi being shown to be a very dodgy ol lad when it comes to making and protecting his money, but he's good at football so it won't matter.
> Soccer might be a fairly isolated space in the grand scheme of it, but it's also where we all now to talk about it. The thing is reddit never ever gets the attention other social medias do because there is simply less people engaging. It's become more mainstream last 5-10 years but it's still not like Instagram/Facebook/Twitter level engagement ever. This sub has 6 million subs and barely 10% of the 6 million at best use the subreddit. I think that's usually the higher end of the average. So there's 600,000 people on this subreddit in reality because subs don't mean anything on reddit like they do youtube except it shows up on your front page. That is the size of a middle sized youtube channel. You have to consider those 600,000 or so people are also having their attention divided by individual posts.
/r/soccer and x.com arguably more influential than those oil states too.
Panama Papers
take away his world cup win
The little Argentine goblin
Messi has a history of tax issues and trying to maximize his salary, I'm just not sure why it applies here (or il reading a bad translation). The translations I've seen suggest that the negotiation is to use UEFA funds to pay out players from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd division, plus women's football, their full salaries. Given that UEFA ostensibly exists to promote and manage international football in Europe, this seems like a perfectly good use of their funds.
The same year, he became a Saudi Arabia tourism ambassador and signed for PSG, the most hated club of this sub, and his fanboys still managed to develop new mental gymnastics moves to justify it lmao. They'll forget this as well. Look at Maradona, he was even more of an absolute scumbag, and they still dedicated him a fucking church in Argentina. If you're a football genius, anything can be ignored.
There seems to be no end to the signs of possible corruption in soccer. THE OBJECTIVE has exclusively obtained the messages and audios exchanged between then FC Barcelona players Gerard Piqué and Leo Messi with former Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin. These documents reveal attempts to "divert" funds from the European confederation to certain players to compensate for the loss of wages suffered as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. The first conversation on this matter begins on April 2, 2020. Rubiales telephones Piqué, who replies that he will call him back in half an hour. In that telephone conversation -as this newspaper has been able to learn after analyzing the communications of the former RFEF president with Ceferin- Piqué, with Messi's authorization, expresses to Rubiales the Argentine player's concern about the significant reduction in his millionaire salary due to the coronavirus pandemic. A few days earlier, FC Barcelona had proposed a salary reduction of up to 70% for the squad in response to the health crisis, which also had an impact on the economy. That same day, an hour after speaking with Piqué, that is, at 4:19 pm, Rubiales contacts the UEFA president and sends him an audio via WhatsApp, which is now reproduced by this newspaper. In the message, Rubiales acts as an intermediary and transmits to Ceferin the concern that Messi has expressed through Piqué. Rubiales raises the possibility of "using UEFA funds" to compensate the economic losses of the players, but both are aware that, if this is made public, it could negatively affect the footballers who seek to benefit from this agreement. For this reason, Rubiales emphasizes Leo Messi's concern about maintaining the "confidentiality" of the negotiations. The former head of the federation points out: "They (referring to Piqué and Messi) told me clearly that, please, no one should know that we are talking about our money because, if people find out, they will kill us". And he underlines: "I am sending you this audio with a message from Leo Messi. It is my voice, but his message. The UEFA president calms him down and assures him that "not even his dog will find out". Rubiales then suggests to Ceferin that RFEF funds from UEFA could be redirected in a way that would benefit Leo Messi and other affected players. "I say it is important for us to have Messi and the rest with us. No need to put money in. We just change the destination and continue to give money to young clubs...", he says. After this exchange of WhatsApp messages between Ceferin and Rubiales, the former president of the federation contacts five minutes later with the former Barcelona defender, conveying his desire to "be able to help them". According to the messages, a three-way phone call was made between Piqué, Rubiales and Messi. In this conversation, according to sources consulted, they discussed the proposal that the former president of the RFEF should present to the Slovenian sports leader to compensate some of the professional footballers for the economic losses caused by Covid-19. Two days after this three-way conversation, on April 4, 2020, Rubiales communicates again with Ceferin via WhatsApp. According to the messages, the two had previously discussed how to compensate the players' salary losses. In his message, the former federation president asks Ceferin if he has considered the proposal and suggests that, should he carry it out, "he should tell Leo Messi at the right time." Rubiales highlights the Argentine's fear that the negotiations will be made public, revealing that "he is afraid that someone will know that we are looking after the salary of the great players." Sources familiar with the negotiation explain to THE OBJECTIVE that "if this matter had come to light, they would have argued that it would also benefit players with lower incomes." Rubiales sends Piqué screenshots of the conversations held with Ceferin, and the former Azulgrana player shares them with his teammate Messi. In this way, all those involved in the negotiations are kept abreast of developments in real time. On April 6, Rubiales sends Ceferin his financial proposal, in which he suggests that 4% of the broadcasting rights for all UEFA matches, previously distributed in a specific way among the national associations, be restructured to allocate 50% to compensate players whose salaries were reduced because of Covid-19. "The RFEF would allocate approximately 50% of the total solidarity payments to the contingency fund. The fund would cover the salary reduction for players in the First Division, Second Division, Second Division B, Third Division, Women's Soccer and Futsal - futsal. The other 50% would be distributed in accordance with current requirements exclusively among the clubs that during the Covid-19 crisis did not agree to salary reductions with their players (25% for professional clubs and 25% for non-professional clubs). This mechanism would be applied during the period necessary to cover all or significantly the salary reduction caused to the players (we consider it to be around 50 million euros)," states the former president of the federation in an extensive proposal. Judicial sources consulted by this newspaper point out that there could be indications of alleged influence peddling, given that the players involved in the negotiations with Rubiales would benefit from this strategic plan, possibly obtaining more favorable conditions than the rest of their teammates. For this reason, they insisted on the need to keep the agreement in the strictest confidence.
>We just change the destination and continue to give money to young clubs What did he mean by this?
Yeah, this didn’t translate to well really. In this context, "young clubs" refers to smaller, less established clubs than Barça and the Madrid teams. Rubiales seems to suggest that instead of directly giving money to established star players like Messi, the funds could be redirected to support these smaller clubs, which in turn might benefit players indirectly by maintaining the overall ecosystem of football development.
This is close to a translation that I read. Feels like there's a lot of outrage here, but this seems really not that shady to me? Yes, making millionaire footballers whole during pandemic isn't exactly the highest priority, but certainly picking up the tab for 2nd and 3rd division and women's is a noble enough outcome, right?
Pretend to be shocked that Pique talked about how politics is discussed at Bernabeu VIP boxes (as if half of *Generalitat* parliament isn’t at Camp Nou at most matches) meanwhile he was doing financial gymnastics with Spanish Supercup to benefit himself and now influencing UEFA board to benefit him again.
The "Hey, if I'm doing it, probably the others are doing it too, so let me accuse them before they accuse me" mentality. I feel that we can see it so much in many domains, especially politics.
>he was doing financial gymnastics with Spanish Supercup to benefit himself Pique was having a multi million deal partnership with the president of RFEF while still an active Barça player. Gently reminder that spanish referees are under the RFEF. Not La Liga. Not Tebas. Not Florentino. The RFEF, Spain FA. Piqué's buddy and business partner, was the president of RFEF. Really cant even think of a more blatant conflict of interest. And no one, including this sub, gave a fuck until the kissgate. Its surreal.
Pique is a hypocrite, just like any other politician. Rules for thee, not for me. Seems fitting he wants to be Barca president some day.
I can't wait until he becomes Barça's president
He may be corrupt, but he might be a good president. He’s seen terrible presidents come and go and he has enough money, goodwill and backing to be there for a while. He could be very successful.
UEFA and football corrupt, nothing new
you're lumping all of football with Barcelona practices there
Yeah true, would be a shame to lump many football clubs in with them. Football is a clean sport. City are clean, just like half of Serie A that one time. Or pretty much all the countries that get a World Cup. Or big Sam that one time. It’s all clean .
Eat the rich! My GOAT Messi included.
With all this scandals that Pique gets himself into, he is a perfect candidate to be a Barca president.
Something something UEFAlona On another note, how many of the club staff saw their salaries cut or were let go during the same period?
There's no mention of how many from the brief research I did, but Barca did report "significant reductions" over lack of working days during the pandemic. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/barcelona-wage-cut-coronavirus-update-messi-a9429466.html What's more interesting is the public image Messi and co put out, where (allegedly) most players agreed to a 70% wage cut and Pique too (under the guise of loving Barcelona), took two significant wage cuts over 2 seasons... all whilst this was happening in the background. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52092809#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17162902510396&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fsport%2Ffootball%2F52092809
Hypocritical cunts.
Shameless
Damn, the humble hero of /r/soccer? How are we gonna spin this? Do we put the blame on Rubiales?
When in doubt blame it on Franco.
I see, you are not familiar with this stuff, when caught in anything shady/ilegal you blame it first on Real Madrid, then on Florentino Pérez and last on Franco.
“Well if Real doesnt take all the money for themselves! La Liga could be save!” “Perez is rich, dont tell me he won’t this stuff too” “Real Marid is not innocent!! They do shady stuff too!” …and so on
"it was his entourage, our humble lord would never do anything like that"
For some reason, I imagine it's De Paul saying this
Nah, you see, Uefaldo planted these audio clips and leaked them purposely in order to inflate his ego
PSG tainted him to then make him join
Barca flairs in this thread already are.
Messi might be one of the greediest players of all time, wouldn't be suprised to see him head to Saudi for a few years after his Inter Miami spell
No need, he's already a tourism ambassador for them
I mean he's already Saudi ambassador or something like that.
And people overlook it because he is 'humble'
Which is kind of myth because no one knows him personally. Also he's contract demands in 2020 were far from humble
The guy literally embezzled money from his CHARITY to avoid paying taxes and almost got sent to prison. Infinite greed #weareallleomessi
Pique doing shady stuff again? Perfect president for Barcelona then
My goat CR7 will never 😭😭
He’d call Piers Morgan
Corrupt d'Or.
Summary in English: Leaked messages reveal negotiations between Messi, Rubiales, and Piqué to divert UEFA funds to compensate for COVID-19 salary losses • Leaked messages and audios show discussions between former FC Barcelona players Gerard Piqué and Leo Messi, former Spanish Football Federation President Luis Rubiales, and UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin about diverting UEFA funds to compensate for players' salary losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. • Rubiales acted as an intermediary, conveying Messi's concerns to Ceferin and suggesting the use of UEFA funds while emphasizing the need for confidentiality. • Piqué and Messi were concerned about the potential public backlash if the negotiations were revealed. • Rubiales proposed restructuring UEFA broadcasting rights to allocate 50% of the funds to compensate affected players, including those from lower divisions and women's football. • Judicial sources suggest indications of potential influence peddling, as the involved players could have gained more favorable conditions than others. https://theobjective.com/espana/2024-05-21/messi-rubiales-pique-ceferin-fondos-uefa/
People on here can’t read for shit and just go off by other comments. Typical Reddit
Why would Franco influence Messi to do this? It’s all Franco’s fault.
Pretty shitty all things considered.
Barca DNA
Can admin add context to this? And explain not "certain players" but literally every player in 4 leagues, women's league and futsal league?
But then it wouldn‘t get the desired reaction.
This thread is literally downvoted by a lot given the 95%. People worship is such a disease. Also fucking ultra rich people might as wel be aliens. Their brain has evolved to not find 100s of millions enough to have, they need more.
Can't say I'm surprised, a lot of top footballers are complete pieces of shit
I don’t know about this news (maybe it’s true), but I’m from Spain and I can tell you that The Objective isn’t a reliable source.
Hey, I read the translation but feel I am missing something causing the outrage here. Is it just saying they went to UEFA to try to get funds to help cover player salaries during covid or did I miss something?
uefalona proven
Well well well