The revelation of Messi's contract sharpens his cracks with Barcelona

Lionel Messi's bond with Barcelona threatens to end badly, financially and emotionally, due to the contract signed in 2017 and with a duration until this summer of 2021, and whose figures El Mundo has revealed this Sunday (555 million euros agreed) .

“The truth is that the feeling we have is one of pity.

We are very sorry to see what this club we love so much has become ”, they lament in the surroundings of the Barça captain.

The conditions of the agreement have since altered the relationship and strained the current situation of a Camp Nou that is in full campaign for the presidential elections scheduled for March 7.

The player used the burofax last summer to request the release letter based on an escape clause that allowed him to leave the club at the end of the season, as published by EL PAÍS.

The Football Leaks portal later claimed that the Argentine received 100 million euros each season.

And now it is the newspaper El Mundo that has specified and revealed the terms of the contract: Messi charges 138 million between fixed and variable per season, so that the amount amounts to 555,237,619 euros.

The newspaper assures that the forward has already received 92% of the total.

Both the footballer, from his environment, and FC Barcelona intend to take legal action against El Mundo.

The information reveals the existence of two bonuses: one for accepting the renewal, which amounts to 115,225,000 euros, and another for loyalty, which adds up to 77,929,995, especially surprising if the escape clause is taken into account. the player can sign for any club at the end of each season until 2021. One of those present at the last contract renewal of October 10, in 2017, assures that the loyalty bonus was an offer from then-president Bartomeu.

“It was something that was not negotiated.

Barto wanted one more photo with Messi ”, explain the same sources.

The contract expires precisely on June 30 and therefore Messi can negotiate right now with the team he wants.

In December, however, he stated in an interview with Jordi Évole that he has not yet decided on his future and that he will do so at the end of the season.

“It doesn't bother us that what Leo earns is known.

Everyone knows how to earn it.

Besides, he generates it ”, insist sources close to Rosario.

“Messi is the fundamental part of the atypical income of the Barça.

If we analyze how much money it generates for the club, the figure is between 250 and 300 million euros per year.

If his gross salary is 140, at least Barça has a profit of 100 million ”, explains to the Efe agency Marc Ciria, financier and founding partner of Diagonal Inversiones, economic manager in the candidacy of Joan Laporta in 2015. Data that coincide with those of the Barça marketing area, which estimates that the income from having Messi on the squad represents between 20 and 30 percent of the budget.

The last contract symbolizes the submission of the then president Josep Maria Bartomeu to the figure of Messi after the flight of Neymar to PSG by paying the termination clause valued at 222 million.

The

messidependencia

won the team and the club after submitting a record budget of 1,047 million for the year 2019-2020.

The mismanagement, and especially the erratic transfer policy - invested around 1,000 million over five years in hires such as those of Coutinho, Dembélé and Griezmann -, in addition to renewing the most emblematic players at off-market prices, have left Barça a critical situation, aggravated by the effects of covid-19.

Messi stayed this season by force at the Camp Nou after failing to leave Barça and no club agreed to a lawsuit over a termination clause stipulated in 700 million.

Pep Guardiola's Manchester City and Pochettino's Paris Saint Germain are two of Messi's possible alternatives.

The English and French will hardly assume a contract like the one the forward had with Barça and the Barça club cannot renew him on the same terms as in 2017.

The Barça club has a short-term debt of 730 million, the negative working capital is 602 million, the salary mass soared to 74% and the total liability stands at 1,173 million.

The numbers precisely caused the president of the Management Committee, Carles Tusquets, to express in December that he would have negotiated the departure of Messi given the situation of the Camp Nou box, also threatened by Barçagate, the case of social networks that is still there being investigated by the Mossos d'Esquadra.

The management of Tusquets is being controversial for delaying the electoral process and intervening in matters that are considered typical of the next president, such as negotiating in the winter market the finally frustrated signing of Eric García, from Manchester City.

The three candidates for the presidency, Joan Laporta, Víctor Font and Toni Freixa, disagreed on the operation while showing supporters of negotiating Messi's continuity due to the many income it generates.

The publication of the contract, however, puts the player in a very delicate situation and affects the self-destructive capacity of Barcelona.

TV-3 announced this week exclusively the report of the technical secretariat on the need to hire Eric García after stating that Mingueza and Umtiti could hardly have continuity in highly demanding matches.

The squad is atomized and Bartomeu's policy favored precisely that each soccer player negotiated his contract in a particular way when each one was asked to collect their deferred income due to the pandemic.

Messi agreed to lower his income to the same extent as the collective in common causes and declined any negotiation to renew a contract whose end may enlarge the player's fracture with Barça.

The contract figures

Fixed amount: 61,328,520 euros (employment contract) and 10,822,680 (image contract) per season: 288,604,800 for the four years of the relationship Premiums: 115,225,000 euros (97,941,250 in the employment contract and 17,283,750 in the image) corresponding to the renewal and 77,929,995 (66,249,462 and 11,689,493) for fidelity.

Variables: 29,780,793 euros (10,158,869 for the 2017-2018 season, 11,828,823 for the 2018-2019, 6,679,801 for the 2019-2020 and 1,113,300 for the 2020-2021).