Lionel Messi was a better player than Cristiano Ronaldo – but can he be the bigger man?

With a good sense of timing, the Saudi Tourism Authority sent an email on Wednesday. It was titled: ‘Messi’s Journey to Riyadh Reveals the Family Side of the World’s Most Exciting New Destination’. In catchier form, it boiled down to what football’s biggest talent chose over his day job in Paris.

It was quite a read. Together with his wife and two of their three sons, we learned that Lionel Messi had a wonderful dinner at Bujairi Terrace in Diriyah this week.

They also took part in a palm-braiding demonstration, marveled at purebred Arabian horses and posed with a white falcon. Messi, the release told us, was “enchanted” by the bird and they sent the accompanying photos.

That’s what you get for £25 million a year: an ambassador. A globally recognized face for your campaigns. You get a bit of his time, his smile, his offspring, his stamp of approval. Visit Saudi, just like Messi does when he is supposed to fulfill other contracts. Visit Saudi, ‘a perfect family-friendly destination’, as they wrote.

If we want to dot the i’s and cross the t’s there, you could apply a disclaimer or two. It’s a lot less family-friendly if you have young mothers in your family tweeting support for women’s human rights. Or if they are gay. Or their surname is Khashoggi. And on certain days it is also better not to take them to Chop Chop Square, about 20 km from Al Bujairi terrace.

Messi visited the country with his family and has a lucrative offer on the table to play in the Saudi Pro League when his PSG contract expires this summer

You know the sport wash dance by now. I occasionally talk about it in this room and it seems to annoy Newcastle United fans. It can also hit Manchester City. And boxers, racers, golfers, tennis players.

They’ve all found their way into that teat, as have many more, and we know that the discussion has broader nuances than good versus evil, just as we know that everyone has the right to enjoy sports in their own way. We could go round there in a just circle all day if the vinyl wasn’t so scratched up.

But let’s forego the bigger pictures of Saudi Arabia’s sporting buy-in and their motivations for doing it for a moment. We should instead focus on the pawn in their crosshairs, who in this case is arguably the best footballer walking the earth.

We can have some degree of certainty about the temptations Messi is experiencing around his near future once the toxic finalities of his time at PSG come to an end this summer.

He has 320 million reasons to follow the golden path to Riyadh and, as with so much in his life, could soon be close to Cristiano Ronaldo again. Messi and Ronaldo, Ronaldo and Messi, the infinite tango of two legends.

I hated Ronaldo’s move because he didn’t have to sell out – it was below him and he could more than afford to apply a few principles.

But his willingness to pay Saudi money was no surprise. He was no longer the best player in the game, or part of that conversation, and his humiliations at Manchester United and the World Cup allowed an ego the size of the Arabian Peninsula to be tickled in time by being the highest paid.

Cristiano Ronaldo opted to move to Al-Nassr in December after leaving Manchester United

It was a disappointing move, but one that would have stroked his ego following the end of his time at United

Forget what he said about conquering Asia just as he had done Europe – that line was less convincing than anything we could read about Messi and his newfound appreciation for birds.

Which brings us to hawks and hawks, because Messi doesn’t need to peddle himself like that either. Less than five months have passed since he ticked the last box of such a wonderful career in Qatar, removing the one star from his record. He did it. He completed the set.

He was finally loved in Argentina in a deeper sense as he has been in Europe longer, and he did so by weaving his joyful patterns in that glorious middle ground between elite functionality and sporting art.

When I think of Messi, I think of beauty and brilliance. I think of Federer, Ali and Biles. Maybe a touch of Ronnie O’Sullivan. It is a subjective list and a short one. They have also mostly had their flaws, especially Ali, and if we talk about Messi’s preferences, we could conclude that the falcon has long since flown on his moral reputation.

After all, he’s already on the payroll as a signed-up badge-kisser for the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 strategy, a decision he made despite Saudi Arabia’s awkwardness rivaling his own country in plans to host the 2030 World Cup.

But a move to play there would go much further than that. It would be complete immersion and willing acceptance for them to use his image to clean theirs. It would be the Saudis’ biggest PR win, their thickest blanket yet over all the creepy stuff we’d otherwise look at.

Maybe it won’t. He has other options, of course, not least in Miami, and presumably anywhere he blindly places a finger on a spinning globe. But Saudi Arabia can be very persuasive and these are not new discussions. An important sportsman recently told me that Prince Abdulaziz, the Saudi sports minister, had met Messi in Paris in January. They usually get what they want.

Personally, I hope that’s not the case. When you see accounts of Ronaldo’s frustrations in his new world, you’re tempted to wonder if he may have wished for a different path too, reminiscent of the surreal sight of his debut in January.

Ronaldo still celebrates goals, but it all feels much less meaningful than it once was

Messi must now decide whether to follow his old rival to Saudi Arabia this summer

I went to Riyadh for that game, which of course was an all-star show against Messi and PSG. There was a good atmosphere on the evening, because the Saudis justifiably love football. But it was kind of sad to see Ronaldo do his siuuuus and his struts like some sort of performing seal. As if it still mattered in any meaningful way.

On that day I noticed the difference in the way one titan passed through the kingdom on his victory lap and the other stayed put, infinitely richer and somehow poorer.

Now Messi has the same choice and possibly it always would have been. Messi and Ronaldo, Ronaldo and Messi.

For my money, Messi was always the better player. The question is whether he can be the bigger man.

As part of the LIV feud, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia have canceled their DP World Tour memberships, formally ending their great relationship with the Ryder Cup.

Lee Westwood (above) has canceled his DP World Tour membership and is no longer eligible to play in the Ryder Cup

“A sad day,” Westwood called it, blaming the European circuit for “going to bed with the PGA Tour.” There is some truth to that. There is also truth in a similar sentence: you make your bed and you lie in it.

I went to see Neil Warnock in Cardiff a few years ago and it stuck with me how he couldn’t help laughing when he described his wife’s surprise that the people of the town liked him.

The same is now true of Huddersfield, adding to Scarborough, Nottingham, Plymouth, Sheffield and London pockets.

Colin was always a funny nickname for him; undervalued was always a better word.