PSG secures Lionel Messi as the ex Barcelona Skipper agrees on 2yrs contract deal
Former FC Barcelona skipper, Lionel Messi, has finally reached an agreement with Paris Saint-Germain as a free agent.
Following the Argentine’s failure to reach an agreement on a new deal with the Catalan mega-club after a meeting last Thursday, there have been rumours linking the 34-year-old to PSG.
Messi, at Sunday press conference, confirmed a move to PSG as a “possibility”.
The contract with PSG will keep Messi at the Parisian club until June 2023, with the option of extending the contract until 2024, according to SkySports.
Messi will receive €25m net per season as guaranteed salary plus add-ons, with his potential total salary around €35m per season.
Since the announcement of Messi’s departure from the Catalan club, there have been frenzy in the French capital.
Hundreds of fans swarmed the gates of the Le Bourget airport on Sunday night after reports that Lionel Messi was due to land in the French capital.
As at now, PSG have not officially announced the signing.
Details later
With the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics finally in the books, human rights activists are gearing up to put pressure on the companies that have taken high-profile sponsorship roles in the upcoming 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
Those activists are demanding that executives of high-profile corporations justify their support of an event that, they claim, will be used to distract the world’s attention from ongoing human rights abuses across China.
Governments of several countries, including the United States, have said that the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur people in its western Xinjiang region, involving prison camps and forced sterilization, amounts to a genocide. China has also faced condemnation for its suppression of democracy advocates in Hong Kong and its repression of minorities in Tibet and Inner Mongolia.
Activists are hopeful that they can use the attention the upcoming Games will generate to force the International Olympic Committee to move the Games elsewhere or, at a minimum, to compel large corporate sponsors to withdraw their support.
Success questionable
While relocating the Games at this late date seems a virtual impossibility, activists believe that calling attention to China’s human rights abuses — which the Chinese Communist Party vigorously denies — may yet have an impact on sponsors. The Beijing Games are scheduled to held February 4-20.