The press from all over the world collects today on their front pages the sanction of Paris Saint-Germain to Leo Messi for being absent without permission from the club from a training session last Monday. The Argentine star was in Saudi Arabia with his family, within the framework of a commercial agreement to promote tourism in this country. As the French media advanced yesterday, Messi will be punished with two weeks of employment and salary and even L'Equipe went further and assured that PSG had withdrawn the renewal offer to the Argentine.
A true earthquake that has shaken Paris and also Barcelona, which dreams of seeing one of its idols return at the next market. Although it is the first time in his entire career that Messi has received a sanction of this type, there have been several exemplary punishments that PSG has carried out. Since the Qatar Sports Investments group landed in the French capital just over a decade ago, stars from all over the planet have worn this shirt, such as Kylian Mbappé, Verrati, Neymar and Leo Messi himself. All of them have been subject to exemplary sanctions.
In the summer of 2019 Neymar was negotiating his return to FC Barcelona and did not show up in Paris the day the players were called to start the preseason. Although he would end up staying at the French club, he had to face a significant economic fine that, according to the French press, would have been around 375,000 euros.
Also the French forward Kylian Mbappé has had to scratch his pocket. In 2019 he was late for a talk by then PSG manager Thomas Tuchel before the game against Olympique de Marseille. The player was relegated to the bench that game and had to pay a financial fine of 180,000 euros that the club donated to the PSG Foundation.
Sanctions at the Parisian club are not only limited to what their players do on the field. In 2018 Marco Verratti tested positive for breathalyzer in a traffic control and the club reacted by announcing an economic sanction through a statement in which it condemned the performance of its footballer: "In accordance with the regulations applicable to the contracts of all our players , Marco Verratti will have part of his monthly ethics bonus removed, which reminds players of the exemplary behavior they must have in all circumstances regarding their status as a Paris Saint-Germain player."
During his time at the Ligue 1 club, Edinson Cavani was punished more than once for not joining the club's activity on the correct date after the Christmas holidays. In 2015 he claimed family reasons, but the club did not accept his excuses and he had to pay 64,000 euros and miss a Cup game and another in the League. "It is unacceptable. As soon as we put our individual project before the collective, we endanger the collective”, argued the then coach Laurent Blanc. The Uruguayan would rejoin the team late after the Christmas break in 2018, being sanctioned again by the club.
The midfielder Adrien Rabiot, also accumulated several sanctions in his time at Paris Saint-Germain. The most remembered is the one that cost him a punishment of six days of employment and salary for liking a publication by Evra in which he celebrated PSG's defeat at the hands of Manchester United in the Champions League. The club met with the footballer, who was reproached for this gesture and imposed a high financial fine.
The French footballer had been away from the team for a few months, when he announced his intention not to renew his contract with PSG. He had also previously been fined for being late for a call.
