Lionel Messi has signed for PSG. A free transfer with a reported 41million Euro annual salary. Twitter implodes with teenagers wetting themselves at the prospect of watching a team on TV including Neymar, Mbappe and Messi. Said team is still the world’s only state-owned one. The glittering object of people’s desire is owned by a state which imprisons or flogs women for being raped, homosexuals for being homosexuals and which denies basic human rights to a sizeable ethnic chunk of its own population. Slavery, or at the very least something very approximate to it is endemic and over 6,500 slave workers have died building football stadiums there for the 2024 World Cup. What’s not to like? Meanwhile, we’re being asked to feel sorry for Messi as he really doesn’t want to leave Barca and has cried a lot, but they can’t afford his salary and still meet strict Spanish financial fair play regulations. This is the same Messi who was figurehead for UEFA’s 2017 campaign to encourage more diversity, inclusion and respect in football.
Granted, it is a stylish kit, but I do wonder if the (presumably now growing exponentially) army of fashionable youngsters who choose to wear the PSG shirt know, or bother about, just what is behind the club.
Personally, who wouldn’t rather support a mediocre level two, going-nowhere team owned by a slightly dubious Greek philanthropic media mogul. Allegations against Evangelos Marinakis amounted to nothing really; little more than sending a group of hoolies associated with the club he owns (Olympiakos) to riot and get a third division match abandoned. Acquittal followed but the murky waters remain for many observers.
Back to the real world and Forest host Bradford City in the EFL Cup tonight. I’m still away, but just over 9,000 make to the City Ground to see a much-changed team take on the Bantams. Most notable face on the pitch is that of record signing (£13.2 million) Joao Carvalho, who has never quite fitted in. Carvalho divides opinion and mere mention of his name can cause horribly toxic Twitter spats between the fors and againsts. Undeniably a talented playmaker, he never fitted in with previous boss Sabri Lamouchi’s plans and was shipped out on loan to Segunda Division Almeira for all of 2020-21. Net result, 32 games and no goals. Grist to the mill for the againsts. Two goals in two minutes from a certain Joao Antonio Antunes Carvalho secured (scraped?) what sounded like a less than convincing 2-1 win (13 shots to Bradford’s 23, 4 on target to their 9, ditto corners). On Twitter, Bantam Nathan is asking how much bribing the referee cost and most people’s MOTM is debutant ‘keeper Ethan Horvath, an American of Hungarian background, recently signed on a free from Club Brugge. Arsenal fan James, as well as emphatically wanting Gunners’ owner Kroenker ‘out’ asks “how the fuck are Forest in the Championship?” I can only presume he ran out of characters before finishing that sentence, “rather than in the Premier League.” Or maybe not. More curiously, why does he even care? See also Leeds fans, Sunday.
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