Lionel Messi left Barcelona for PSG this year after spending a long and illustrious career in the Catalan capital. His departure has not only come as a shock for Barcelona fans, but also for football connoisseurs around the world.
Barcelona, deep in financial debt were unable to keep Messi there because of his humongous salary as well as other benefits. Although Messi wanted to take a huge pay cut, it was impossible for that to happen due to the CVC deal of La Liga.
As much as this has been put forward as the only possible reason behind the exit of Messi, the question also arises if it was financially possible to keep Messi at Barcelona despite taking the pay cut to the maximum possible extent?
Lionel Messi had a contract of €555 million at Barcelona which was more than any other footballer in the world.
It amounted to 139 million Euros yearly, supplemented by 115 million as his renewal fee as well as 78 million Euros as his loyalty bonus.
With Barcelona in over one billion debt, it could be said that bearing Messi's salary was by no means an easy task for them.
These are some of the details of the contract that he signed in the year 2017 and after its expiry this year, Barcelona were unable to pen down a new contract with Lionel Messi.
It is often said that Josep Maria Bartomeu is the sole culprit behind the disastrous financial condition of Barcelona for making reckless decisions in terms of transfers like - Coutinho, Dembele and Griezmann and offering them high salaries as well as signing a few players who have been incompetent in maintaining the high standards of Barcelona like Semedo, Umtiti and Lenglet.
But one thing is often overlooked. Spending more than half a billion euros over a period of 4 years for one player was always going to have consequences. Joan Laporta, the current President of Barcelona has said a few days ago that he would have been happy if Messi offered to play for free; it was actually the only way Barcelona could retain Messi.
As much as this statement has enraged many Barcelona fans. It cannot be denied that Barcelona were suffering when it came to meeting the expenses of Messi, and this definitely is one of the reasons behind the financial instability of the club.
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