Lionel Messi’s Contract With Barcelona Worth $674 Million: Mundo

Photographer: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Pictures

Lionel Messi, the celebrity striker with FC Barcelona, will earn greater than 555 million euros ($674 million) from his present contract with the highest Spanish soccer workforce, newspaper El Mundo reported, citing a replica of the contract.

El Mundo, which revealed a redacted model of the doc on its web site, stated the six-time winner of the game’s high honor — the Ballon d’Or — had probably the most profitable contract in sports activities historical past. The compensation contains wage, advertising rights and a sequence of different bonuses and incentives, the paper said.

The four-year deal runs via the tip of the present season. Messi spent a lot of the low season agitating to be launched from his contract earlier than finally persevering with to play what is probably going his final season with Barcelona.

Barcelona stated in a press release that it performed no function in leaking the contract to El Mundo and stated it deliberate to take authorized motion in opposition to the newspaper.

“FC Barcelona expresses its absolute help for Lionel Messi, particularly within the face of any try and discredit his picture, and to wreck his relationship with the entity the place he has labored to change into the perfect participant on the earth and in soccer historical past,” the assertion stated.

Barcelona, one of the crucial profitable golf equipment in European soccer historical past, has seen its funds significantly exhausting hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Debt doubled to 488 million euros and the membership reported a decline in income of greater than 200 million euros in 2020 as followers have been barred from attending matches.

Barcelona Looks to Outside Investors as Financial Losses Mount

The membership has been pitching buyers on shopping for a bit of the workforce’s off-the-field companies in an effort to stem losses. In an funding teaser despatched to potential buyers and seen by Bloomberg, the membership is proposing carving out its digital property, worldwide soccer academies, sports activities information group and merchandising companies into a brand new subsidiary. The workforce would promote 30% to 49% of the curiosity within the new entity to exterior buyers, a primary for a membership that’s wholly owned by its members and who must approve any such deal. Barcelona declined to remark concerning the potential deal.