Barça fans fail in court bid for EU to probe Messi transfer

FC Barcelona football fans lost their final court bid to get the European Commission to probe whether state aid fueled superstar Lionel Messi’s multimillion-euro transfer to Paris Saint-Germain.
The European Union’s top court rejected a challenge from Barça fan Issam Abdelmouine and fan group Penya Barça Lyon, saying that they weren’t directly affected by any state subsidy and that investigators in Brussels didn’t have to pick up their complaint.
Messi, one of the greatest footballers ever, left Barcelona in 2021 after the club blamed the Spanish league’s financial fair play rules for being unable to match a massive pay deal from Qatar-owned PSG.
The same day that Messi announced he was quitting, Abdelmouine fired off a complaint to the Commission, demanding that it investigate his allegation that PSG got unfair state aid in the form of inefficient French financial fair play rules, allowing state-owned clubs to overspend. He got a rejection letter just three weeks later.
The Court of Justice said Abdelmouine could not claim to be an “interested party” in a potential subsidy investigation by claiming a “general interest in the defense of a sport such as football and its values.” It backed a lower court who ruled his case offside last year.
Abdelmouine’s lawyer Juan Branco was disappointed that Barça and its president didn’t back the court challenge.
“FC Barcelona and Joan Laporta refused, against all expectations, to join the proceedings,” he said. “Football fans are the ones suffering” as clubs focus on their financial interests above the game, he said.
The case is C-224/23 P PBL and Abdelmouine vs. Commission.