CELEBRITY
Messi gets set for PSG Champions League bow
Lionel Messi came to Paris to win the Champions League again and on Wednesday (Sept 15) he is set to finally make his first start for his new club when they kick off their European campaign in Bruges.
Five weeks have passed since Messi was presented as a Paris Saine-Germain player and declared he was in “the ideal place” to win the biggest prize in club football for the fifth time.
In more than a month he has been seen in a PSG jersey for just 24 minutes as a substitute in a Ligue 1 game at Reims.
The 34-year-old had been expected to make his full debut for the Qatar-owned club last weekend but in the end he was rested against Clermont after returning from international duty with Argentina.
However, PSG coach Mauricio Pochettino is expected to finally unleash the six-time Ballon d’Or winner from the start at the Jan Breydel Stadium against Belgian champions Club Brugge in the Group A opener.
If Neymar and Kylian Mbappe start too, it will be the first time the superstar attacking trio will have been on the pitch together for the Parisians.
Expectations are sky-high, both for Messi at his new club and for PSG in the Champions League, a trophy they have yet to win but crave more than anything.
PSG will play Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City – the team that knocked them out in last season’s semi-finals – as well as RB Leipzig in a group that could hardly have been tougher, but this is a team built to go all the way.
“It makes me think of Liverpool when I arrived there. Liverpool were building a team to win the Premier League. Here I have joined a team that has been built to win something. I said to myself: ‘This is going to be massive’,” Georginio Wijnaldum, another of PSG’s summer signings, told sports daily L’Equipe.
They should, at the very least, be far too strong for their first opponents, even if the former European Cup finalists have been Belgian champions in three of the last four seasons.
The last time PSG went to Bruges was in the group stage two years ago. There was no Messi then, and there was no Neymar either, but Mbappe bagged a hat-trick in a 5-0 win.
This summer Wijnaldum and Messi were joined at the Parc des Princes by Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, flying full-back Achraf Hakimi and former Real Madrid skipper Sergio Ramos, as well as Portuguese prospect Nuno Mendes.
Ramos has not played at all yet, while Messi has been slowly preparing himself, but PSG have still won five games out of five in Ligue 1, scoring 16 goals.
Their recruitment drive, coupled with their decision to knock back up to €200 million (S$317 million) from Real Madrid for Mbappe even with the France star in the final year of his contract, has had some of their European rivals up in arms.
“State-owned clubs are as dangerous for football’s ecosystem as the Super League was,” said La Liga president Javier Tebas, calling PSG’s spending “unsustainable” in a football economy suffering from the impact of the pandemic.
PSG have always claimed they have not breached Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations and issued a stinging rebuke to Tebas, calling his remarks “insulting and defamatory”.
When it comes to Messi, La Liga’s loss is PSG’s gain. That is clear even if Messi has hardly contributed anything on the field for his new team.
“There are many more people who have a wider vocabulary to describe him closer to the reality Leo deserves,” Pochettino told uefa.com when asked for his impressions of his compatriot.
Pochettino, who is without the suspended Angel di Maria for the start of the European campaign, was wary of playing up PSG’s Champions League chances just yet.
“This is a really unpredictable competition…you need to be lucky,” he told uefa.com.
Then again you can’t get much luckier as a coach than having Messi, Neymar and Mbappe in your team.
-AFP
Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first footballer to reach billionaire status, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which has valued the Portugal great’s net worth at an estimated $1.4 billion.
The 40-year-old striker’s financial ascent comes after he signed a new contract with Saudi side Al-Nassr in June reportedly worth more than $400 million.
Bloomberg said that Ronaldo earned more than $550 million in salary between 2002 and 2023, supplemented by a decade-long Nike deal worth nearly $18 million annually, and lucrative endorsements with Armani, Castrol and others that added more than $175 million to his fortune.
Ronaldo’s move to Al-Nassr from Manchester United in 2023 had already made him the highest-paid player in football history, with an annual salary of 177 million pounds ($237.52 million), plus bonuses and a reported 15% share in his Saudi Arabia club.
Argentina and Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi has earned more than $600 million in pre-tax salary during his career.
Ronaldo’s billionaire status places him among a rare group of athletes that includes basketball greats Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James, golfer Tiger Woods and tennis player Roger Federer.
Ronaldo suggested he is not considering retirement any time soon.
“I still have a passion for this,” he said at the Portugal Football Globes gala on Tuesday. “My family says it’s time to quit and they ask me why I want to score 1000 goals if I’ve already scored 900-something. But I don’t think that way inside.
“I’m still producing good things, I’m helping my club and the national team. Why not continue? I am sure that when I finish I will leave full because I gave everything of myself. I know I don’t have many years left to play, but the few I have left, I have to enjoy them to the fullest.”
-Reuters
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Former England soccer captain David Beckham and actor Gary Oldman were knighted in King Charles’ annual birthday honours list on Saturday, while sculptor Antony Gormley was made a Companion of Honour.
Beckham, 50, joined Manchester United as a trainee in 1993, going on to make almost 400 appearances for the club where he won a string of titles and cups.
He subsequently played for Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, and Inter Milan, as well as captaining his country 58 times and making 115 appearances.
His marriage to fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham in 1999 cemented a celebrity status which went far beyond his sporting exploits.
Oldman, 67, started his career on the stage, where he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, before rising to prominence in film. He won the best actor Oscar for playing Winston Churchill in the 2017 drama “Darkest Hour”.
He also had roles in the “Dark Knight Trilogy” and the “Harry Potter” movie series and more recently starred in the TV spy drama “Slow Horses”.
Other famous names receiving honours included damehoods for musical theatre star Elaine Paige, novelist Pat Barker and ceramics maker Emma Bridgewater.
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of rock band the Who and a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, received a knighthood for services to charity.
More than 1,200 people received honours for their achievements, with a particular focus on those who had given their time to public service, the government said.
King Charles’ official birthday will be celebrated with the annual “Trooping the Colour” military parade in London on Saturday. His actual birthday is on November 14
-Reuters
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One of three judges in Diego Maradona’s closely scrutinized homicide trial in Argentina resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal triggered by the alleged filming of an unauthorised documentary, bringing uncertainty to the future of legal proceedings.
The high-profile trial over the death of soccer star Maradona began on March 11 in the South American country where the World Cup winner is still revered.
-Reuters
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