European Football Union (UEFA) President Aleksander Ceferin, former Barcelona players Lionel Messi and Gerard Pique and former Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales reportedly discussed the possibility to compensate players for financial losses linked to salary cuts. during the coronavirus pandemic, at the expense of UEFA.
The Objective publication had access to messages and audio recordings of conversations between Pique and Messi with Rubiales and Ceferin. They report attempts to “redirect” funds from European football’s governing body to certain players whose income has fallen due to COVID-19.
The first conversation about this took place on April 2, 2020. Rubiales called Piqué, who replied that he would call back in half an hour. In this telephone conversation – as it became known after analyzing the correspondence between the former head of the RFEF and Ceferin – Pique, with Messi’s permission, expressed to Rubiales the Argentine player’s concerns regarding a significant reduction in his salary due to the pandemic. A few days earlier, Barcelona proposed cutting player salaries by 70% in response to the health crisis, which has also affected the economy.
The same day, an hour after the conversation with Piqué, Rubiales contacted the UEFA president and sent him an audio recording of the messenger. Rubiales acted as mediator and relayed Messi’s concerns to Ceferin. Rubiales raised the possibility of “using UEFA funds” to compensate the players’ financial losses, but both agreed that if this information became public it would negatively affect the players’ image. Rubiales highlighted Messi’s concerns about maintaining the “confidentiality” of the negotiations.
– They [Пике и Месси] told me clearly that no one should know that we are talking about their money, because if people find out, they will kill us,” Rubiales reportedly said.
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Source : MatchTV
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