CELEBRITY
REVELATION: MESSI WAS CHELSEA-BOUND!
Lionel Messi may have come close to joining Manchester City this summer but it’s not the first time the Barcelona talisman has been on the verge of a move to the Premier League.
According to Sky in Italy’s Gianluca Di Marzio, the Argentine superstar was on the cusp of becoming a Chelsea player in 2014.
The fee would have been a world-record £225million transfer – Messi’s buyout clause at the time – with Messi, Blues owner Roman Abramovich and then-manager Jose Mourinho keen for the deal to go through. He would have also earned £50m per season plus 70 per cent of image rights had the move not collapsed.
In his latest book Grand Hotel Calciomercato, a diary of the untold stories of the transfer market, Di Marzio also claims that Real Madrid tried the same ploy in 2013 but they were quickly dismissed by Messi out of his loyalty to their eternal rivals Barca.
It is reported that contact between Messi and Chelsea first began in January 2014 as the former was in the midst of a tax fraud probe. Frustrated with the Spanish authorities he sought a new life in London with the lure of playing under Mourinho to boot.
After speaking with several intermediaries as well as former Barca team-mate Deco, now an agent – who also had played at Chelsea, a meeting was set up with Messi and Mourinho via a FaceTime call.
That reported encounter went well with Messi telling his camp afterwards ‘With Mourinho, for how he’s spoken to me, I can win whatever I want: he’s a winner, go ahead and close the deal.’
Later that summer, Chelsea did business with Barcelona in the shape of signing Cesc Fabregas. And Di Marizo reports that it was a chat with Fabregas during one July pre-season session that saw the move break down between Messi and the Stamford Bridge outfit.
It is claimed that after his initial work to make the move work, Deco was squeezed out of talks as Mourinho spoke directly to Messi himself. Fabregas warned Deco of the situation and the former Portugal playmaker duly went to ‘snitch’ to Messi’s father and agent Jorge.
Messi senior himself was angry at being excluded from negotiations with the personal terms already agreed by his son’s intermediaries.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, I swear,’ Messi reportedly told his father.
But it was too late and the potential mouthwatering deal was curtailed as he listened to his father and stayed at the Nou Camp. Still, it wasn’t that bad for Messi as Barcelona went on to win the Treble (La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League) as he himself scored 58 goals alongside 27 assists.
-Daily Mail
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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