Less than 5 years ago, the best footballers in the world were members of La Liga teams. However, Neymar left Barcelona in 2017 for Paris Saint-Germain, Cristiano Ronaldo departed Real Madrid the following year, Xavi and Iniesta retired, Sergio Ramos left Real and joined PSG. And now with Messi leaving Barcelona, it looks like the main reason for following the competition disappeared.Barcelona are unable to extend the contract of the 34-year-old Argentinian superstar with their dire economic predicament falling foul of La Liga’s financial fair play rules.Messi’s future now looks to lie away from Spain (almost 17 years after making his La Liga debut as a 17-year-old) with PSG appearing favourites to lure him to France.Winners and losers of Messi’s departure: Aguero, Real, La Liga…And it is not only Barca who are heavily hit by such a turn of events, it is the whole league that will suffer.”It is a huge blow”, Placido Rodriguez Guerrero, professor of economics at the University of Oviedo, told AFP.”There will be repercussions on all sides,” said Rodriguez Guerrero, who is also director of the Sports Economics Observatory (FOED) in Spain.”There are the shirts that will no longer be sold, the goals that will not be scored, and there is the impact on sponsors too.”Author Jimmy Burns gave a simple way of looking at the importance of Messi to the competition.”Brits come to Barcelona to see the Sagrada Familia (cathedral) and to see Messi,” says Burns, author of the book Barca, A People’s Passion.##EDITORS_CHOICE##Even though Barcelona and Real Madrid won five straight Champions League titles between 2014 and 2018 and eight in 13 years from 2006 – Spain’s giants are now struggling to keep up with other powerful and wealthy clubs. Mostly PSG and Manchester City.”Messi was the last emblematic player remaining in La Liga and if he goes elsewhere the Spanish league will be even less attractive,” said Marc Ciria, a financier and informed observer of Barcelona, in a recent interview with sports daily Marca.A while ago, hundreds of millions of people worldwide were eager to tune in to watch the ‘Clasico’ between Madrid and Barca, Ronaldo and Messi. Although it is undoubtedly a massive derby, El Claisco will sure lose the appeal it had in the past decade.”La Liga can’t afford to lose Messi,” admitted Angel Torres, the Getafe president who is also a ‘socio’ (member) of Real Madrid.”We would be making a mistake that we would all regret. The best player in the world has to retire in Spain.”Departing Messi to give press conference Sunday at Camp NouWhat is surprising is that the La Liga officials stood their ground and showed no flexibility as far as rules go. Those rules are such that they are stopping Barcelona from making new signings without eating into their colossal debts of almost 1.4 billion USD.In March, Joan Laporta based his successful campaign to return as Barcelona president on a promise to keep Messi. However, league rules made it impossible, he explained.”La Liga’s rules set limitations and we have no margin.”With Messi’s departure short term will arrive – the club expects to register losses of almost 600 million USD for last season, Laporta revealed.PSG owner’s brother confirms: Messi will signMessi’s previous contract was worth 650 million USD over four years, the daily El Mundo reported in January. But even with losing Messi and getting rid of such a contract, Barca could actually lose money.Messi cost Barcelona 450 million USD over the last three years of his contract, but generated some 730 million USD in revenue – according to estimations by a group of economists including Ciria.Only a day before news of Messi’s departure appeared, an announcement came that La Liga had agreed in principle to sell 10 percent of its business to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for over 3 billion USD.Real Madrid and Barcelona, who continue to cling to the idea of a breakaway European Super League, condemned the deal and are certain that the future La Liga is more uncertain than ever.
