It does not get any worse than losing the best player in the world on a free transfer a year after a whole fracas about a burofax informing the club that he wanted out.

Now here's the fun part. The burofax Lionel Messi sent to the club after that Barcelona defeat invoked a clause that allowed him to leave on a free at the end of the season. Barcelona claimed the season was delayed, so that date had lapsed. What followed was right out of bizarro world.

Barcelona said, "Gimme €700 million. Gimme it." Interested clubs said:

One season later, Messi finds himself at Paris Saint-Germain, the same club that employs Neymar, Kylian Mbappe (for how long?), Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Angel Di Maria, Achraf Hakimi and Marco Verratti, among others. Yet, that's not the extent of this crazy little thing called the transfer window.

What pandemic? The bids are flowing like it's poker night

This summer was expected to be a relatively quiet one, owing to ... you know ... *points everywhere*.

Instead, we've seen Jack Grealish move to Man City for £100m (a British record, of course) and Romelu Lukaku return to Stamford Bridge after ten long years for *checks notes* £97.5m from a club that just won the Serie A title.

Man United also made a couple of signings, finally landing Jadon Sancho for an initial £73m, though that represents a smart piece of business a year after they were quoted upwards of £100m. They also landed Raphael Varane for somewhere in the region of £40m.

Elsewhere, business has understandably been slow, (not at Arsenal, though, for some reason). Clubs are facing immense difficulties moving fringe players. Liverpool have had some luck, but even that has been sluggish. Man City have had no luck whatsoever, though that's a price you pay when your squad is one of the best in the world.

Remember that scene in the new Spider-Man trailer? Where Wong is all "Don't cast that spell, it's too dangerous," and Dr Strange is all "Fine, I won't," ... and does it anyway. Well, that just about sums up this transfer window.

Kylian Mbappe now seemingly wants out of the PSG sport(washing) project. Cristiano Ronaldo, the sport's most popular athlete but a man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault, still finds himself a wanted man, though not in the sense of justice. There have been murmurs that Ronaldo is looking to "engineer a move" to Man City, because, let's face it, who else can afford to pay his astronomical wages?

Keeping up with the Kardashian transfers

So, to recap, Messi, Lukaku, Grealish and Sancho have already signed on the dotted line, and we have Mbappe, Harry Kane and Ronaldo possibly on the move. And we haven't even gotten to Erling Haaland yet.

From being broke to pulling the Rolls-Royce around, some of Europe's biggest clubs have shown more faces than the Braavos assassins in Game of Thrones.

The one big-money deal went down (there's no such thing as a free transfer, people!) and the big clubs looked at PSG pulling out all the stops and said:

In the grand scheme of things, these are Pyrrhic victories. Inter Milan signed Lukaku with the sole aim of scaling the top of Serie A, but the fall from grace was equally spectacular. Lukaku is now gone, so is Hakimi, the flying Moroccan. They've since replaced the pair, but the club's finances are in serious disarray.

PSG went all-out and lost the Ligue 1 title to Lille, which was thrilling for the league, but not so much for the Qatar Sports Investments project (and they still haven't won the Champions League). Real Madrid missed out on the title to Atletico Madrid (who snapped up Luis Suarez for £5.5m), pled poverty, and have reportedly made a €160 million bid for Mbappe, who's in the last year of his contract.

All with Financial Fair Play regulations still in play (though they have been relaxed, with 2020 and 2021 set to be assessed as a single period).

Is there an alternate universe where this vanity carousel leads to stability in club finances? Maybe, if Doctor Strange works his magic. Is there a way for clubs to use these vast sums to make the game more accessible for fans of all ages? If the motivation is there, sure.

But the way this is going, even if Mbappe, Kane and Ronaldo all get their moves, in the long run, this is likely to end like the final season of Game of Thrones. Now that was satisfying. Or was it?

Image credits: PSG, Cristiano Ronaldo Twitter