Barcelona still owe Messi €39M despite PSG move

Danny Jones

Barca are just an utter state at the minute

If reports are to be believed (and it comes as no surprise to us at all), Barcelona still owe the now-departed Lionel Messi a whopping €39 million. Right, seriously, who is running this sh*tshow?

After Barca could not re-sign Messi due to being over La Liga’s wage cap limits – the same reason they can’t register any of their new signings either – it is thought that this is the minimum figure the Catalan’s still own their greatest player ever. They are having an utter shocker and have been for some time.

Barcelona have to pay Lionel Messi a 'loyalty bonus' of €39million, even though he has left the club. That is according to El Mundo – who released the full details of Messi's contract at the Camp Nou (from January –https://t.co/ytNLoj6qdR)

— Colin Millar (@Millar_Colin) August 11, 2021

This comes from El Mundo’s Colin Millars, who notes that Messi’s last contract at Barca included an eye-watering €72 million bonus to mark his unparalleled contributions to the club. Now while that is true, it seems like yet more ill-thought-out business from the Spanish giants; I mean, it’s not as if their financial troubles haven’t been rumbling on for some time.

Former president, Josep Maria Bartomeu – whom Messi is well-known to not have had a great relationship with – had initially arranged for it to be paid in two different instalments. The first sum was due in June 2020, with the second following a year later, but who knows what they can actually pay at the minute.

As it happens, they seemingly found themselves in similar circumstances after Neymar left the club, as the Brazilian said even back in 2020 that the club still owed him around 60 million euros.

He claimed that he did not receive the loyalty bonus that was part of his deal, as is the case with Messi, and the dispute was ultimately taken to court in order to reach an agreement. It’s unlikely that Messi will do the same – he did offer to take a 50 per cent pay cut after all – but he’s still right to expect some serious windfall given all he has done for the club.

As if losing him to PSG wasn’t bad enough, without having the GOAT in their team, they are now expected to take a serious hit in terms of shirt sales, sponsorships and drawing in fans in general. In case you needed it ramming home any further, losing Messi is just about the worse thing that could have happened to Barca – at least in the manner they did, anyway.