MESSI AGREES FIVE-YEAR BARCELONA CONTRACT, ACCEPTS WAGE CUT
Lionel Messi and Barcelona have reached an agreement for the forward to sign a new five-year deal with the Catalan club, sources have confirmed to ESPN. Sources added Messi has accepted a significant wage reduction to prolong his stay.
Messi was a free agent after his contract at Barca expired and he had courted interest from Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City since first revealing a desire to end his 20-year relationship with Barca last summer. The 34-year-old’s previous contract was worth over €500m and that expired at the stroke of midnight on July 1.
However, with the return of Joan Laporta as president in March, Messi grew more open to staying at Camp Nou. An official announcement is expected in the coming days.
Laporta had hoped to finalize an agreement before Messi’s previous terms expired. Barca’s financial problems made that impossible, though, with their gross debt over €1bn. Cutbacks have been essential, in terms of transferring players out, reducing the wage bill, and getting Messi to accept a lower salary.
La Liga president Javier Tebas had warned Barca they would not be allowed to register Messi’s new deal if they were unable to reduce spending to comply with the league’s financial fair play rules. Barca’s spending limit has been reduced from over €600m to €347m since the coronavirus pandemic, with further reductions expected to be imposed for the upcoming season.
Messi had first expressed a desire to leave Barca last August
after the 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League. His relationship
with then-president Josep Maria Bartomeu had reached a breaking point. In a
September 2020 interview with Goal, after Barca had blocked his departure,
Messi called Bartomeu a “liar” and said the board had been “making things up as
they go along” and “plugging holes” for years
