FC Barcelona Still Paying Messi ‘Religiously’ Until 2025: Laporta

FC Barcelona are still paying former player Lionel Messi “religiously” and will do so until 2025 club president Joan Laporta revealed in an interview with La Vanguardia.

Messi famously left Barca in tears in 2021 after the Catalans failed to offer him a new contract that would successfully allow them to navigate Financial Fair Play Limits.

His deal that expired on June 30 of that year, however, is believed to be the highest-paid sports contract of all time, with its alleged details leaked by El Mundo.

In short, Messi reportedly agreed to receive €555,237,619 (US$604.2 million) over four seasons if he met a series of conditions.

In August 2021, not long after he fled to Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer, SPORT reported that cash-strapped and debt-ridden Barca still owed the Argentine €52 million ($56.6 million) which they intended to have fully paid up by 2022.

As revealed by Laporta at the turn of July 2023, more than two years since Messi last donned his iconic ’10’ Blaugrana shirt, Barca still have outstanding payments with the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner “until 2025”.

Laporta was asked outright by La Vanguardia if Barca still owe their greatest ever player money. He explained that what is owed are deferred wages agreed with the board of his predecessor Josep Bartomeu, which “produces pending payments that end in 2025”.

“He is paid religiously,” Laporta added.

Around a month ago, Messi revealed that he had decided to join Inter Miami and therefore snubbed Barca and Al-Hilal in the Saudi Arabia.

In interviews with SPORT and Mundo Deportivo, Messi stressed that he didn’t want anything to do with Barca players having to take pay cuts or leave the club to facilitate his return, but Laporta insisted that “one thing has nothing to do with the other”.

“We had agreed with La Liga that for Messi we would dedicate a part of the resources we have. It was contemplated within the viability plan” Laporta said.

“We told [Messi’s father and agent] Jorge Messi. He told me that Leo had had a very difficult year in Paris and that he wanted less pressure. With our option [of returning to Barca], he would have continued to have pressure and I understood his decision.”

With no hard feelings, Laporta wished Messi well in Miami and revealed the club is already beginning to work on preparing a “supertribute” for the La Masia product within the framework of the club’s 125th anniversary and for when it returns to the renovated Camp Nou.