Lionel Messi has agreed to join Inter Miami of the American MLS League, turning down more than a $1 billion offer from Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal.
Messi’s decision comes after his two seasons spell in PSG France where he won the Ligue 1 title twice. The former Barcelona playmaker turned down offers from European clubs, including his childhood club Barcelona, to move away from Europe.
“I made the decision that I am going to go to Miami,” Messi said…”I still haven’t closed it 100%. I’m missing some things, but we decided to continue on the path.”
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Inter Miami is reportedly offering Messi a $54 million per year contract, much less pay than what Al-Hilal offered. Al-Hilal reportedly increased its offer to $1.7 billion for three seasons.
The Argentine said his decision to move to the United States was not influenced by money.
“Money [has] never been an issue with me. We didn’t even discuss the contract with Barcelona! They sent me a proposal but it was never an official, written and signed proposal.
“We never negotiated my salary. It wasn’t about money otherwise I was going to join Saudi,” he said.
Speaking in an interview with Mundo Deportivo, Messi explained why he turned down Barcelona where many had expected him to return.
“I really wanted to return to Barça, I had that dream. But after what happened two years ago, I did not want to be in the same situation again, leaving my future in the hands of someone else…”
“If the Barcelona thing didn’t work out, I wanted to leave Europe, get out of the spotlight and think more [about] my family.”
Barcelona made the difficult decision to let Messi go in August 2021 owing to financial difficulties encountered by the Spanish side. But before then, the 35-year-old was at the center of blame for everything wrong in the club, including the loss of games and the financial trouble.
Messi said he had turned down Barcelona because he doesn’t want to be further blamed for the club’s ordeals.
“I was already blamed for a lot of things that weren’t true in my career at Barcelona and I was a bit tired of it, I didn’t want to go through all that… What were they going to say about me if they had to sell players or things like that for my signing,” he said.
Messi’s closest rival in Europe, Cristiano Ronaldo, joined Saudi side Al Nassr early this year in a more than $200 million per year deal.
Saudi Arabia is seeking to attract more superstars with its oil-built financial muscle. Former Real Madrid player Karim Benzema and Chelsea’s N’golo Kante, have both joined Al-Ittihad in $220m and $213.8m deals respectively, over the next two years.
The Argentine astro, who just led his country to a World Cup victory, was expected by many to join the Saudi side – a move that would have revitalized the duo’s rivalry.
Meanwhile, Messi’s deal with Inter Miami includes a Percentage of subscriptions to the MLS season, a pass from Apple TV, paid directly by Apple, a percentage of Inter Miami shirt sales, paid directly by Adidas, the possibility of acquiring an MLS franchise at the end of his career.
This week, Apple TV+ announced that it secured the rights to a four-part documentary about Messi’s career. The company is also in the first year of a TV rights deal with MLS, per Sky Sports.
Messi’s decision to move to the US has stoked a patronage frenzy for Inter Miami. The club saw its Instagram followership move from 1 million to nearly 5 million in less than 24 hours.
According to TickPick, an online ticket marketplace, Inter Miami’s lowest price for a game ticket was just $29 on Tuesday, but went up to $329 on Wednesday, a 1,034% jump following Messi’s decision to join the club.
“We saw an almost instantaneous jump in Inter Miami ticket prices when the word got out that Messi was leaning towards joining the club, the company’s brand manager, Kyle Zorn, said.
“Given his status as arguably the greatest player in the world, every time Inter Miami plays on the road, we’re going to see record-breaking ticket prices.”