The Spanish daily ‘El Mundo’ has revealed some documents concerning the contract of Gerard Pique, who became the highest paid defender in the world in 2018, when he renewed his contract with Barcelona.
The newspaper said that in January 2018, Pique signed the biggest contract of his career, a year before the end of his previous contract with Barcelona and a month after Messi made the biggest contract in history with the Blaugrana.
According to reports, there were 142 million euros gross for five seasons, from 2017/18 to 2021/22, to the value of 28.4 million euros gross per season, a value that could increase if the central defender fulfilled certain goals in the Catalan club.
According to sources close to the player, Pique told former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu that he wanted to become the world’s highest-paid defender, exceeding former Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos. He wanted around 15 million euros, while Ramos earned 12.5 million euros tax-free.
Pique’s contract stipulated that the centre-back would receive a fixed annual salary of 13,600,000 euros and that Barcelona would have to pay at least 107,213,050 euros to the player. until the end of 2021/22.
In addition to these amounts, Barcelona would have to pay a special bonus of 15,446,036 euros, 50 percent of which would be paid until June 30, 2018 and the other half in June 2019.
The Spaniard also earned an extraordinary bonus of 7,414,186 euros, to be paid by January 31, 2018.
Also according to the contract, Pique would have 2,400,000 euros for each season of the five years of contract, for the transfer of his image rights, that is, 12 million euros in total.
