London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Jul 10, 2025

No, Piers Morgan, Lionel Messi isn’t about to sell enough shirts to cover his salary

No, Piers Morgan, Lionel Messi isn’t about to sell enough shirts to cover his salary

There is a false confidence that men – and it is almost always men – are imbued with when they start talking about football. You see it in pubs and on fan forums. The conversation quickens and reverts to clichés. Endless sentences start with “Of course, you know” and tail off into nothingness. Chat about football is the great enabler of tedious platitudes passed off as genius.
Piers Morgan tweeted on Tuesday about the signing of Lionel Messi, perhaps the world’s greatest footballer, who has been bought by Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona for a reported €35m a year. Messi had just been unveiled as the club’s latest signing, and Paris Saint-Germain – backed by Qatar Sports Investments – had started selling shirts emblazoned with the player’s name and number.

“PSG will get their Messi money back in shirt sales in six months,” Morgan wrote. “Great business.” His friend Mark Austin, a Sky News presenter, also heralded the signing as a good business decision. “PSG will soon get their dosh back,” he confidently tweeted.

Except they won’t, and never will. The idea that multi-million pound or euro investments can be recouped through the sale of overpriced jerseys is one of football’s most intractable and unlikely myths. Its persistence reveals a lot about the way we think and talk about the national game.

“To give you some context, most football shirt deals, 85 to 90 per cent will go to the manufacturer,” said Chris Lepkowski, a sports journalism lecturer at Birmingham City University. Those manufacturers are a small coterie of some of sports apparel’s biggest names, such as Nike, Adidas or Puma.

The manufacturer/club split isn’t a flat rate across the entirety of football, however. Some clubs have managed to wangle slightly more generous deals. “Bayern Munich have a big link in with Adidas which helps them,” said Lepkowski, as do Liverpool, who signed a £30 million a year deal with Nike in 2020 that reportedly gives them 20 per cent of each £80 sale. “But on the whole, you’re looking at 10 to 15 per cent,” Lepkowski added.

Lepkowski has done the sums on the back of an envelope – which, to his credit, is probably more than many people confidently tweeting about the business prowess of Paris Saint-Germain have done – and managed to figure out how many replica shirts would need to be sold by the French club to recoup the cost of buying one of the world’s most recognisable players.

It’s 18 million.

“PSG, I believe, average about 750,000 shirt sales a year, which is good,” he said. “They would need, in three years, to sell 18 million shirts to cover the cost, and that’s only from the shirt sales... You’re dealing with what is effectively one of football’s big myths.”

The reason the myth persists is largely to do with the gulf between the realities of modern-day football and how fans in the stadium and at the turnstiles interact with it. “A lot of it is disinformation or failure to understand the way football operates – the mechanics and finance in football,” said Lepkowski. Football has become big business, with non-transparent financial structures that the average fan takes little time to try and learn.

“For instance, you’ll see people talking about free transfers or net spend on transfers,” said Lepkowski. “Neither are relevant. You won’t get a free transfer in football. There are costs on top of any contract – a signing on-fee or a bigger fee going to the agent, and that player will be on bigger wages than he would be had he been under contract elsewhere.”

The other reason is the banality of most conversations around football. Football punditry is often mind-numbingly tedious, and provides little actual insight. That includes commentary from former players – who presumably know better – repeating the line because they have little constructive to add.

“They’ve worked in football, and they push that myth,” said Lepkowski. Even Morgan is within the online football fan orbit as a known celebrity Arsenal supporter. “People do associate him with being a big football fan,” Lepkowski added. “When people like that peddle comments like that, it doesn’t help.”

And yet, when the next big player to switch clubs decides to move to a new team, the same tired line will undoubtedly appear. But remember, said Lepkowski: “You cannot physically sell that number of shirts to get that money back. It’s wishful thinking. The notion that 18 million people will all, from somewhere, decide to buy a PSG shirt is extremely unrealistic. It’s not going to happen.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Linda Yaccarino Steps Down as CEO of X After Two Years
US Imposes New Tariffs on Brazilian Exports Amid Political Tensions
Azerbaijan and Armenia are on the brink of a historic peace deal.
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Weinstein Victim’s Lawyer Says MeToo Movement Still Strong
U.S. Enacts Sweeping Tax and Spending Legislation Amid Trade Policy Shifts
Football Mourns as Diogo Jota and Brother André Silva Laid to Rest in Portugal
Labour Expected to Withdraw Support for Special Needs Funding Model
Leaked Audio Reveals Tory Aide Defending DEI Record
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
London Stock Exchange Faces Historic Low in Initial Public Offerings
A new online platform has emerged in the United Kingdom, specifically targeting Muslim men seeking virgin brides
Trump Celebrates Independence Day with B-2 Flyover and Signs Controversial Legislation
Boris Johnson Urges Conservatives to Ignore Farage
SNP Ordered to Update Single-Sex Space Guidance Within Days
Starmer Set to Reject Calls for Wealth Taxes
Stolen Century-Old Rolls-Royce Recovered After Hotel Theft
Macron Presses Starmer to Recognise Palestinian State
Labour Delayed Palestine Action Ban Over Riot Concerns
Swinney’s Tax Comments ‘Offensive to Scots’, Say Tories
High Street Retailers to Enforce Bans on Serial Shoplifters
Music Banned by Henry VIII to Be Performed After 500 Years
Steve Coogan Says Working Class Is Being ‘Ethnically Cleansed’
Home Office Admits Uncertainty Over Visa Overstayer Numbers
JD Vance Questions Mandelson Over Reform Party’s Rising Popularity
Macron to Receive Windsor Carriage Ride in Royal Gesture
Labour Accused of ‘Hammering’ Scots During First Year in Power
BBC Head of Music Stood Down Amid Bob Vylan Controversy
Corbyn Eyes Hard-Left Challenge to Starmer’s Leadership
London Tube Trains Suspended After Major Fire Erupts Nearby
Richard Kemp: I Felt Safer in Israel Under Attack Than in the UK
Cyclist Says Police Cited Human Rights Act for Riding No-Handed
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Musk Battles to Protect Tesla Amid Trump Policy Threats
Air France-KLM Acquires Majority Stake in Scandinavian Airlines
UK Educators Sound Alarm on Declining Child Literacy
Shein Fined €40 Million in France Over Misleading Discounts
Brazil’s Lula Visits Kirchner During Argentina House Arrest
Trump Scores Legislative Win as House Passes Tax Reform Bill
Keir Starmer Faces Criticism After Rocky First Year in Power
DJI Launches Heavy-Duty Coaxial Quadcopter with 80 kg Lift Capacity
U.S. Senate Approves Major Legislation Dubbed the 'Big Beautiful Bill'
Largest Healthcare Fraud Takedown in U.S. History Announced by DOJ
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Political Dispute Escalates Between Trump and Musk
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
×