Barcelona needed to move players out to renew Messi’s deal and they have not been able to find the solution. The club, whose total debt is about €1,173m, are constrained by the league’s salary cap. Messi has agreed to a 50% pay cut, dropping from about €45m basic, after tax, to closer to €20m.
The question is where Messi, who was 34 in June, will play this season. He tried to leave Barcelona in August 2020 after a breakdown in his relationship with then president Josep Maria Bartomeu but was forced to stay. Now, when he was keen to continue for longer, it appears he is being made to go. Barcelona’s salaries currently account for about 110% of their income and their president, Joan Laporta, has admitted: “We do not comply with financial fair play regulations.”
In 2019-20 Barcelona’s salary limit was €671m, last season it was €347m, and the figure this season is substantially smaller again. Salary caps in Spain, shorthand for limits applied to all pre-tax spending on the squad, are not subject to punishments handed out retrospectively but are applied in advance.
Messi has made 778 appearances for Barcelona, scoring 672 goals which have helped to secure 10 league titles, four Champions Leagues and three Club World Cups among his haul of 35 trophies.
