Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 11:10 am• Wessel Antes • Last update: 11:14

Paris Saint-Germain would love to see Lionel Messi stay longer in Paris, Spain reports marca. The Parisians want to break Messi’s contract and extend it for a year. Messi is currently still with the French superpower until mid-2023. However, the Spanish medium denies that the club would have a unilateral option to automatically renew his contract.

Messi himself would only want to make a decision about his future after the World Cup in Qatar. The Argentinian, together with Neymar, reported to PSG a week earlier to start the new season as fit as possible. Messi seems eager and determined to deliver a better performance at the French club in the coming season. In his debut season, Messi made 34 official appearances for PSG, scoring 11 goals and providing 15 assists. The Argentinian thinks he can stunt his country in Qatar during the upcoming World Cup.

Messi does not only contribute to PSG in the sporting field. For the Parisians it is also commercially important that the superstar continues to play football in the Parc des Princes. Attracting the Argentinian resulted in no fewer than ten new sponsorship contracts for the club. The value of these contracts has also increased. Director Marc Armstrong confirmed this last month to marca. “We definitely see growth. Where those contracts were previously worth three to five million euros, they are now worth five to eight million.”

PSG shirt sales have also exploded since the arrival of Messi. For the first time, the club sold more than a million shirts in a season. Messi’s name was printed on sixty percent of these. That alone yielded 41 million euros. Unbelievable, Armstrong said. “’We can’t make many extra shirts anymore. We have actually already reached the ceiling.” Nasser Al-Khelaifi claims that Messi has brought PSG around 700 million euros.