BARCELONA – The newspaper El Mundo de l’Segle XXI published in its edition this Sunday an exclusive information, providing documentary evidence that supports this information, according to which the last contract signed by Lionel Messi with Barcelona It meant a disbursement of 555 million euros to the Barça club until June 2021, always counting, however, on the fulfillment of a series of variables that have not always been achieved.
The publication of the news provoked both the reaction of Barcelona, distancing itself from any responsibility in the appearance of the same and announcing that it will take legal action against the newspaper for being a “document of exclusively private and governed by the principle of confidentiality between the parties “and understand that its publication may cause harm to him, and the Argentine footballer’s own environment, confirming to ESPN Esports that his lawyers are already working on a lawsuit against the World for the publication of the contract, studying to involve those who from within the club had access to this contract and could have filtered it.
Barcelona sources “categorically” rejected that the leak could have arisen from the club itself, warning that the contract was also in the possession of Laliga, the Tax Agency and the law firm that in its day processed the burofax that he sent requesting the player ‘s departure.
The extensive report, which did not want to make any assessment from the environment of Messi, specifies all the amounts to be paid by the club between the 2017-18 season and 2020-21, both in terms of fixed and variable salaries in the employment contract as in the image contract and the total sums amount to 555 million 237,000 619 euros gross, which in net amounts would mean an income for Leo, also states the information, of approximately 297 million of euros.
The contract, in terms of remuneration, begins by revealing that Messi has a fixed annual salary of 61 million 328,000 520 euros gross under the concept of ‘salary, tab, bonuses per match won, allowances, private travel compensation and seniority’ and sets various variables in terms of number of matches played (exceeding 60 per cent of the team total), titles won or Champions stages passed, in addition to individual prizes.
To these more than 61.3 million euros of the employment contract add another 10 million 822,000 680 euros per season for the same concepts in the image contract, which total 43 million 290,000 720 euros.
EXPENSES … AND INCOME
If the publication of the newspaper highlighted the considerable economic impact it has on the concept of spending for Barça, citing these more than 555 million euros at a particularly delicate time for the pharaonic debt that drags the club, is not taken into account the income generated by the membership of Messi, which can be discovered through the many advertising contracts that thanks to the Argentine footballer obtains the entity.
This explains both the 55 million euro contract signed in 2017 by the Japanese multinational Rakuten as the main sponsor of the club, alluding to the primacy of Leo … And the renewal for a single year signed in 2020 (until 2022) the decrease in the number is understood by the incidence of the covid and, also, by the uncertainty of future of the player.
“Messi is the fundamental part of Barça’s atypical income. I am analyzing how much money he generates for the club and the figure is between 250 and 300 million euros a year. If his gross salary is 140, Barça gets at least 100 million profit “revealed in a conversation with the EFE agency Marc Ciria, financial advisor and partner of the firm Diagonal Inversions.
“When you sell the Barcelona brand around the world, you put Messi’s face on it. Under these conditions, no brand would dare to renew for another three or four years because it is unknown what the club’s value will be without this player,” said Ciria, adding that 40 percent of the spectators who go to the Camp Nou on a match day “are national and international tourists, who bring a lot of money to the club, and come to see Messi’s Barça”.
The sum of the contracts of Rakuten (55 million until the last renewal), Nike (105 million fixed per season), Konami (20) and Beko (19 that will be completed this year) have meant in Barcelona about 200 million annual euros that, recalls the financier have Leo Messi as the main protagonist.