“When PSG offered us 250 million euros for Lamine Yamal and we refused, he was still 17 years old”. Several times in recent years, FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta has revealed attempts by Paris Saint-Germain to recruit Lamine Yamal. The interest of Parisians in the little Barcelona prodigy, perhaps the most anticipated player in this Champions League clash between PSG and FC Barcelona on Tuesday evening, is real, and in Barcelona, some are not completely calm despite the confidence of Joan Laporta.
“We have confidence in our strengths. Barça pays its players well. This has always been the case. It’s a question of being comfortable at the club: far from Barça, it’s very cold. Here we are good. It is a well-organized, multi-sport club, well structured, well managed and the players are grateful. Of course we are not perfect but everything can be improved and we work well”he explains in an interview given to The Team this Monday. It must be said that in fact, FC Barcelona is rather protected for the moment.
Barça is protected
Lamine Yamal is thus under contract until 2031, with a release clause of one billion euros. Impossible to imagine Paris Saint-Germain lifting this clause as was the case with Neymar in 2017 (222 million euros), or taking advantage of an end of contract as was the case with Lionel Messi. Just as it is still too early to imagine scenarios like Ousmane Dembélé or Ferran Torres, with FC Barcelona forced to sell one year from the end of the player’s contract or risk seeing the player leave for free. From this point of view, FC Barcelona can sleep soundly for a few more years.
In addition, the Barcelona number 10 seems fully fulfilled in Barcelona. Unlike other examples cited above, he is a child of La Masia, a child of Barça, who plays with some of his closest friends, for the club in the region where he grew up. He therefore necessarily has a huge connection to FC Barcelona, which Neymar, Ferran Torres or Dembélé logically did not have. And then, obviously, the desire to emulate a certain Lionel Messi, who certainly left the Catalan club for Paris, but he did so at a very advanced age, with a prime which had already passed, and partly for extra-sporting reasons linked to problems in registering a possible new contract from La Pulga.
But…
This is also where Paris Saint-Germain can have a hand to play. If the financial situation of the Catalan club has improved a little, and the club’s income should increase further once the Camp Nou is completely renovated, the club from the French capital remains in a much more interesting financial situation. Even if we imagine that Lamine Yamal will be the last player that Barça will sell in the event of a new financial crisis, the Parisian club has considerable financial and sporting assets to convince the player, and thus hope that the latter forces a departure. Potentially, the reigning European champions can thus offer a salary to the Spanish international that Barça will never be able to match. Which could turn the head of the Barcelona star. Some people from Barcelona are also a little afraid of those around him, and of his sulphurous father in particular, who could push him to make decisions going against Barça.
Paris Saint-Germain can also offer more guarantees to Lamine Yamal in terms of titles, and in particular this Champions League, behind which FC Barcelona has been running since 2015. Which is also important in the player’s desire to write history and win one or more Ballon d’Or. Even if it is true that PSG has changed its guideline a little in terms of transfer window and has somewhat put aside this desire to stack the stars, having the big star of tomorrow would be a superb coup – sporting, media and financial – for the Parisians. And the profile of the player, who remains quite collective and does not skimp on defensive efforts, is entirely compatible with what PSG has become. But before thinking about seeing Lamine Yamal frolicking on the lawn of the Park around thirty times per season, we will have to neutralize him tomorrow evening…
