Lionel Messi married his wife, Antonella Roccuzzo in 2017. In that year, La Pulga was also believed to have ‘married’ Barcelona because he was given a new contract of fantastic value.
Lionel Messi is in the spotlight following the disclosure of the value of the contract from Barcelona that was signed in 2017. Spanish newspaper El Mundo leaked the value of Lionel Messi’s contract in Barcelona, which reached 555 million euros.
This does not include the bonus that Messi gets as much as 78 million euros per year. Messi also received a bonus of 115 million euros as a bonus for receiving a new contract.
El Mundo called it the Pharaoh Contract, aka the Pharaoh-style contract, because of its size. El Mundo believes that a contract value of this size is detrimental to Barcelona. Barcelona currently has difficulty paying the club’s total debt of 1.173 billion euros. The Spanish club is the club most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now the Catalan media, Sport, are also telling the story behind Lionel Messi’s fantastic contract. At that time, in 2017, Messi decided to marry his girlfriend Antonella Roccuzzo on June 30. At the same time, Messi also ‘married’ Barcelona because he decided to accept a contract extension.
Barcelona has offered a contract extension for Messi at the end of the 2016-2017 season. At that time, President Josep Maria Bartomeu contacted Lionel Messi’s agent directly, namely Jorge Messi’s father.
Negotiations with Jorge lasted several days, and finally Lionel Messi’s father gave an agreed answer on June 29, 2017. Jorge is also in charge of the new contract awarded by Barcelona, with a duration of 4 years. In the contract, Bartomeu also included a release clause of 300 million euros.
Lionel Messi himself did not know about the new contract because he had entrusted it to his father. Especially at that time, Lionel Messi was also preparing for his wedding to Antonella Roccuzzo which was held on June 30, 2017.
Since then, Barcelona officials including Bartomeu felt that their mission to prevent Messi from leaving Barcelona had been accomplished. Things changed quickly when in August 2017, PSG made up for Neymar’s release clause from Barcelona worth 222 million euros. From there, concerns arose from Barca officials that another club would also make up for Lionel Messi’s release clause worth 300 million euros.
News that was later heard by Barca’s top brass was that there was a check deposited in a Luxembourg bank, from a Middle Eastern country worth 300 million euros, to buy a footballer. Bartomeu moved quickly and immediately offered another new contract for Lionel Messi (only 2 months after Messi extended his contract in June 2017).
The new contract (which El Mundo has now leaked for £ 555 million) also contains an increase in La Pulga’s release clause to 700 million euros. Lionel Messi, who did not know the details of his previous contract (because it was taken care of by Jorge), finally signed a contract in September 2017.
Until now, it is not known whether the news heard by Barca officials about the check in Luxembourg is true or not. However, efforts to keep Lionel Messi from Barcelona will end next June, as Messi refuses to extend his contract.
