FC Barcelona Improve Lionel Messi Return Offer To €200 Million And Set Contract Length

FC Barcelona have reportedly improved their offer for Lionel Messi to return to the club this summer and have set his potential contract’s length.

The 35-year-old becomes a free agent on June 30, and his future is up in the air amid claims he won’t extend the two-year deal he signed at Paris Saint Germain when leaving the Blaugrana in the summer of 2021.

Messi is said to have turned the Parisians down because of their attempt to lower his reported €30 million ($32.4 million) yearly salary to navigate Financial Fair Play limits.

And while Messi has reportedly ruled out a move to the Middle East as PSG will improve their offer, FC Barcelona are also upping the stakes according to various reports.

In past weeks, it was said that Barca president Joan Laporta had made a “final offer” to Messi which would entail him receiving €200,000 ($216,000) yearly and then the expected €100 million ($108 million) proceeds from his farewell match.

According to the same newspaper that originally claimed this, El Nacional, which carries a report from Madrid-Barcelona, it is now alleged that Messi’s potential earnings could reach €200 million ($216 million) with the Catalans as he is also given the profits from merchandising tied to his name.

Whether this is accurate or not is difficult to prove at this moment in time, but it is now starting to be widely claimed elsewhere that Barca are thinking up ways of getting Messi to return other than merely offering a high salary that is beyond their means.

At Mundo Deportivo, Roger Torello also says that Barca will offer Messi a low base wage and then a “percentage of income” he generates for the club.

On the El Chiringuito television program in Spain, Jose Alvarez Haya claimed on Tuesday evening that Barca have been working on Messi’s comeback for more than the past 10 days and have a plan with an “imaginative formula” to pay him related to marketing.

Alvarez went one further by saying that Messi will be offered a fixed year plus an optional, additional season at Camp Nou leaving the door open for him to head to the MLS if he wishes in 2024 should he not step down in 2025.

What is becoming more evident is that Barca appear serious in their quest to see their greatest ever player wear the club’s shirt once more, and these alternative methods of seeing him paid could surpass what even PSG are able to offer.