Sport
Scale of financial trouble at Barcelona revealed by Messi contract leak
No other context was required. The number was the headline as the front page of Sunday’s edition of Spanish newspaper El Mundo revealed the true worth of the contract which Barcelona have been paying Lionel Messi – €555,237,619. Signed only in 2017, this represents the biggest contract in sporting history. No athlete has ever been paid more.
With Barcelona on the brink of bankruptcy, having recently revealed debt of more than €1 billion, the leak was clearly intended to paint the Argentine as the bad guy, squeezing all he can out of the Camp Nou club. It might even have been a plot to force the 33-year-old out of Barca with his contract up at the end of the season.
The sheer scale of Barcelona’s financial troubles is colossal. The Catalan club could very feasibly go to the wall and the terms of the astonishing contract which Messi has been under, that sees him earn around €2.6 million a week, further underlines the fiscal recklessness that has taken hold of Barcelona over the last few years.
But while Barca have money problems, the club’s political toxicity could take even longer to dissipate. The election of a new club president, with election day in early March, will help do this to a certain extent, but the leaking of Messi’s contract to the press highlights how difficult it will be to get everyone on the same page again.
Under Josep Bartomeu’s stewardship, Barcelona became an arena for egos. This is not unusual for a club of such size and stature, but the lack of trust between different wings of the Camp Nou made it difficult to know what was truth and what was merely spin. Even now with Bartomeu gone, it’s not easy to distinguish between the two.
Channels of communication haven’t just broken down at boardroom level, they have collapsed between the club and their own fans. Joan Laporta, widely seen as the frontrunner to be Barcelona’s next president, at least has some credit in the bank from his first successful stint as the club’s figurehead, but the 58-year-old lawyer will need allies.
This is where Victor Font might have the upper hand in his chances of truly overhauling the toxic culture at Barcelona. He has made the club’s legends a key part of his election campaign with Xavi Hernandez believed to be backing the businessman. More recently, Xavi has kept quiet as Laporta has pulled away in the polls, but it was widely reported that the former midfielder would take charge as Barca head coach in the event of a Font election victory.
From Xavi to Carles Puyol and Messi, Barcelona’s icons have been poorly treated by the club for years. The next club president would be wise to get these figures on side to win hearts and minds in the fanbase. With Xavi, Puyol and Messi behind them, supporters might once again feel the Barca hierarchy has the club’s best interests at heart.
Politically, though, it might be best for whoever wins the presidential election at Barcelona to see the back of Messi and that incredible contract in the summer. There is of course a strong financial argument in favour of allowing the 33-year-old to leave the Camp Nou at the end of his €555 million contract but his departure would also eliminate the expectation that Barca must always harness their greatest ever player. That expectation has weighed them down in recent years, despite the astonishing scoring record of the Argentine.
Barcelona find themselves at a critical juncture of their modern history as a football club. For all their glittering success over the decades, it is customary for the Catalans to need a reboot from time to time. Laporta did this in his first stint as Barca president and might well be charged with repeating the trick again. First, though, he must find a balm for the political sting Barcelona are currently feeling.
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