Like an old rheumatic ailment periodically gnawing away at a swollen patella, the La Liga boss is at it again. Javier Tebas seems to be even more at odds with eveyone this period, if that’s even possible. Like a disgruntled old dog grunting while chewing obsessively on the bone that’s his flavor of the month – ranging delectably from Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and the European Super League to Ronaldo – the old master and commander of the Spanish league has now turned his attention on his latest bone of contention, Paris Saint-Germain.
Which was only a matter of time and only to be expected considering the sudden, albeit not totally unexpected, exodus of Lionel Messi from La Liga. The stark barrenness of the Spanish football landscape is suddenly becoming a noticeable blight to the eyes after the exit of the diminutive titan of modern football of the last two decades.
When Cristiano Ronaldo made a beeline for Juventus, it hadn’t been so obvious then as Messi and Neymar were still there as legitimate superstars way above the pecking order to keep the spectators happily entertained. Then Neymar had his personal itch to scratch and decided to call it a day at Camp Nou, finally setting sail for the Parisian capital, out of the shadow of his best buddy and strike partner, Messi. Again the masses hmm-ed and haa-ed … but they eventually accepted the new status quo and simmered down. After all, Messi was still there, larger than life, week after week in the La Liga calendar.
The tremors, although appreciably lower on the Richter scale, were again felt when Sergio Ramos, longtime skipper and arguably the most feared defender in football, packed his bags for Paris Saint-Germain after the Real Madrid president refused to extend his contract. The attention soon shifted away from the Bernabeu to Camp Nou, with the focus on Laporta’s antics, swearing high and low that he would never ever allow Messi to leave, come hell or high heaven. There was a temporary calm before the perfect storm struck in full force.
The dreaded announcement was finally made: Ladies and gentlemen, Lionel Messi has left the building.
The unexpected has finally happened and the teutonic plates that held the structure of European football in place have been irrevocably shaken and shifted. The attention and focus of the football world are now riveted on the epochal developments at the Parc des Princes, as if automatically, and symbolically, hailing its status as the new gateway of European football.
LaLiga is now desperately short on big draw names following Messi’s exit although Tebas would be the last to concede to this. The embittered La Liga president has torn into Paris Saint-Germain after they signed Messi from Barcelona, calling the Parisian club ‘the enemy’ and ‘as dangerous as the Super League’ following their string of high-profile signings. Just to jolt the memory here, it was Tebas himself who – supposedly in the name of integrity and honor – refused to lift a finger in any way to accommodate Barcelona’s quandary vis-a-vis Messi and the inflexible FFP regulations and wage caps.
Barcelona, needless to say, have deservedly been left in disarray following the exit of Messi, who left after 21 years at the Nou Camp – with the club facing a desperate rebuild as they continue to contend with a crippling financial crisis.
PSG, meanwhile, have embarked on a summer spree by clinching the remarkable signing of Messi, while also prising Sergio Ramos from Real Madrid, while Achraf Hakimi and Gianluigi Donnarumma have come in from Inter and AC Milan and Georginio Wijnaldum arrived from Liverpool. And, as the icing on the cake, Nuno Mendes was brought in at the last minute on deadline day.
And while the Ligue 1 side have a star-studded line-up ready to challenge for top European honors, Tebas has savaged the club and called them ‘a league of legends’ due to their age, with Messi recently turning 34 and Ramos at 35 – although PSG also have Neymar, 29, in his prime and Kylian Mbappe flourished aged 22.
In the stinging attack that was totally uncalled for, he referred to them as a problem to be ‘solved’ and insisted Barcelona would recover from their sale of Messi and work against ‘state clubs’ like PSG.
“PSG looks like the league of legends given the age of some players,” he told a press conference. “La Liga has young players like Vinicius (Junior). The problem of PSG, we will solve it. What PSG are doing is as dangerous as the Super League.
“We will continue to grow despite the departure of Messi. We will work against the club states. These clubs are as much enemies as the Super League.”
He said no player in La Liga was ‘essential’ and that the league would bounce back from the sale of any player – and warned that PSG’s current spending was not sustainable.
“Currently PSG spends more than 600 million euros on salaries (per year), television in France will pay nothing more than 70 million euros, they declared commercial losses 30 per cent above the average of others in Europe… that’s not sustainable. It can’t happen.
“I miss Messi, Sergio Ramos, Cristiano [Ronaldo]… but nobody is essential. Ronaldo’s or Neymar’s departure seemed like a catastrophe and we continued to grow. It will also happen with Messi, I don’t care about anything.”
Tebas is sadly a classic case of sour grapes, one who keeps repeating the chorus from his worn-out song that no player is ‘essential’ but yet can’t help admitting that he’s missing Ronaldo and Messi. Old school and obdurate, proud and haughty, he’s clinging on tenaciously, and desperately, to old traditions and values. In refusing to change with the times, he brings to mind the poignant caricature of a huge, old bulldog fiercely and stubbornly biting onto someone’s butt, adamantly refusing to let go.
The dyke is already bursting at the seams. The old won’t hold. It’s the changing of the guard. Even Messi had to go with the flow and embrace the new, despite having all the while earlier clung stubbornly to his preference for Barcelona and all that it stood for to him and his family. In the end, something had to budge – and it was Messi who had to give up on his dreams, at least for the present, and graciously embrace the new reality.
It’s already beginning to play out. The new drama has been scripted and the new players are already warming up on the stage. The old proscenium stage settings have already long given way to the ultra-modern.
It’s the changing of the times and the ones who are still obdurately resisting change will one day end us as old fossils, irrelevant and sadly out of place.