Lionel Messi's New Wage Is Absolutely Out Of This World

Posted Saturday, January 13, 2018 by thesportbible.com

It's been said that Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player on earth because Lionel Messi is from another planet and it seems that if you're going to keep him around then you've got to pay astronomical prices.

Firstly I must apologise if that opening line offended anyone, probably with a Cristiano Ronaldo avi or reference to him in their Twitter bio- it's not actually my line, although I wouldn't say I disagree with the thinking.

There isn't really anything that Messi hasn't done in his time in Barcelona, beating pretty much every record that's going at the club and plenty in La Liga, Spain, Europe and the world too.

Messi's contract was pretty close to running out recently and there were rumours that he could walk away from the place he's called home for most of his professional career, with Manchester City the likely destination.

However instead he signed a new deal with reports saying that he was now earning a whopping £500,000-per-week but that's now been changed. According to Football Leaks, via Media Part, the Argentine is actually paid €100 million-a-year, around €2 million-a-week, unreal money.

Messi earns 85% of his money from his fixed wages, which works out at about €71 million, whilst the rest of the 15% comes from his image rights whilst he also picks up a €70 million bonus if he manages to not leave the Camp Nou before his contract is up.

The new contract, signed this season, runs until 2021 and, after the Catalan giants lost Neymar for £198 million, includes a transfer release clause of £626 million, still not as large as Cristiano Ronaldo's at Real but likely to stop anyone signing him.

Those are all ridiculous figures no matter how you look at it, not that £500k-a-week wouldn't have been.

In 2017 Messi lost out to his rival on winning the Ballon d'Or, tieing them at five awards each, but if the Argentine keeps going the way he has been he could reclaim the award this year.

Ernesto Valverde's side are 16 points clear of Zidane's and the 30 year old has 16 goals in 18 La Liga starts. What he could really do with is winning the World Cup.

One thing is for sure, if we had the money we'd all happily pay Messi whatever he liked!