Paris Saint-Germain are not in violation of UEFA's Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules by signing Lionel Messi, president Nasser Al-Khelaifi insisted on Wednesday.
Lionel Messi has arrived at PSG after the club has already signed Achraf Hakimi from Inter, Sergio Ramos, Georginio Wijnaldum, and Gianluigi Donnarumma this summer.
With Neymar and Kylian Mbappe still on the books, many questions are left unanswered about how PSG can add Messi to the wage bill without breaking the rules.
But Al-Khelaifi says the Ligue 1 giants can justify the addition of the 34-year-old, telling reporters, as per Goal.com: "Regarding the financial aspect, I will make it clear: we know the rules of Financial Fair Play and we will always follow the regulations."
"Before we do anything, we check with our commercial, financial and legal people. We have the capacity to sign him. If we sign Leo, it's because we can, otherwise, we would not have done it."
"What Leo brings to the club is huge, which you can see just outside. He is a big asset for the club. I hope Leo will not ask for a raise, but what we have is fantastic!"
Al-Khelaifi also insisted that Kylian Mbappe will stay at the club as France forward has 'no excuse' now after the signing of Lionel Messi. "The future of Mbappe? I think everyone knows. His future is clear. He said it himself, he wanted us to have a competitive team," the Parc des Princes chief said at Messi's first press conference on Wednesday.
"Well, we have the most competitive in the world right now. So there is no excuse for him now. He can't do anything else but stay," he added.
Mbappe, who has scored 42 goals in all competitions for PSG last season, has a contract at the French club until the end of June 2022 which the 22-year-old forward has given no indication to extend. Amid all this saga, European heavyweights Real Madrid from time to time have shown their keen interest in Mbappe.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor