Sport

Saudi Arabia’s FF Ready To Change ‘Golden Rule’ To Get Messi

Published

4 months ago

January 28, 2023

The Saudi Arabia Football Federation plans to increase the number of foreign soldiers to have more opportunities to sign Lionel Messi.

According to Saudi Pro League regulations, each team can only register up to 8 foreign players. This number will increase in the near future after the success of the Cristiano Ronaldo deal, according to ESPN.

In the January 2023 transfer window, Al Nassr was forced to part with Vincent Aboubakar to make way for Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ronaldo is the 9th foreign player in the Al Nassr squad. Therefore, the home club Mrsool Park crossed out Aboubakar’s name to register the Portuguese superstar on the competition list.

Daily Mail reveɑled that the Saudi Arabian Football Federation did so to clear the way to welcome Lionel Messi in the future.

Mundo Deportivo confirmed that Leo will receive a salary of nearly 300 million euros a year if he agrees to play for Al Halil club in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is ambitious to welcome Messi to the Middle East to play football.

Transfer expert Gerard Romero said Messi has no intention of extending his contract with Paris Saint-Germain.

According to Forbes, winning the World Cup made Messi hesitate to sign a new contract.

“El Pulga” is said to have other things in mind when considering the future.

Messi’s contract with PSG is only valid until June 2023. Qatar owners plan to keep Messi from before the 2022 World Cup kicks off. However, the Parc des Princes home club has not reached an agreement with M10 after a long period of negotiations.

In the case of going to the Middle East, Messi receives a salary that can make him the highest-paid player in the football village. Ronaldo is holding this position after being paid by Al Nassr an income of up to 200 million euros per year.

Messi has a good relationship with Saudi Arabia. The 2022 world champion is the country’s tourism ambassador. Ibrahim Alkassim, general sеcretary of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, admitted: “I make no sеcret that we want to welcome Messi one day. The idea of the Federation is to always improve football. Of course we do. I want to see Cristiano and Messi play here together.”

According to The Athletic, in May, Messi signed a contract with Saudi Arabia to be an image ambassador and promote the country’s tourism industry.

Whether for the tourism industry, the newspaper claims that Messi’s contract will put him in an awkward position because Saudi Arabia is promoting “Vision 2030”, an ambitious plan to present an Arab country Saudi Arabia completely innovated for the world, including its bid to win the right to host the 2030 World Cup.

Messi gets paid a lot to promote Saudi Arabia

Messi made a trip to Jeddah, a resort city in the Red Sea, in May to begin his role as a tourism ambassador for Saudi Arabia. He posts pictures of watching the Saudi sunset on his yacht on Instagram, where he has 370 million followers.

However, he also clearly stated that with the photo, this is a very fair “paid cooperation” content. Saudi Arabia’s promotional website “Visit Saudi” has a page dedicated to Messi and his activities.