PSG Wants Lionel Messi on the Team, Ready to Open Negotiations

Football club PARIS Saint-Germain (PSG), are still open to talks on signing former Barcelona star Lionel Messi whose exit from the club was officially announced on Thursday, 5 August to the shock of fans worldwide.

PSG hopes the presence of an Argentinian manager at the club, Mauricio Pochettino, and Messi’s former Barcelona teammate Neymar will help to smooth a deal as well as drive up their commercial revenues, and that will be factored into financial fair play considerations.

Messi has spoken to Pochettino since he was told by Barcelona that his time there had to end and Neymar is working to convince Messi to come to Paris.

Messi turned down PSG and Manchester City some months ago, but Barcelona said financial restrictions have prevented them from renewing the contract of a player who has officially been a free agent since the end of June.

Pep Guardiola did not explicitly rule out City pursuing Messi but his priority is to try to sign Harry Kane from Tottenham and he said: “Right now it is not in our thoughts [to sign Messi], absolutely not.”