Barcelona still owe Lionel Messi a huge amount of money amid his return rumours next summer.
The entire football community was in complete disbelief when Lionel Messi left Barcelona last summer.
The 35-year-old had worked for the club his entire career and was destined to retire as a one-club man. However, due to financial issues at Camp Nou, Barça was unable to extend his contract, and he eventually signed for Paris Saint-Germain.
However, there has been much talk that the Blaugrana are hoping to re-sign Messi and bring him back to the club next summer. His contract with PSG expires at the conclusion of the season, and the club is apparently already working to mend their relationship with him.
In the middle of everything, Sique Rodriguez asserted that Barcelona has not yet made any moves to re-sign Messi, calling everything else “noise.”
The journalist continues by saying that Messi still owes the Catalan giants “a lot of money” from his time there.
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The former captain of Barcelona was one among the athletes who consented to wage deferrals in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when Josep Maria Bartomeu was still the club’s president.
Additionally, according to a number of media outlets, the Blaugrana still owe Messi about €50 million in unpaid salaries. Following his departure, there were rumors that Barcelona was in talks with his attorneys to settle the debt in 2021 and 2022 in installments.
However, based on Sique Rodriguez’s report, it appears like the funds are still outstanding.
The club’s economic vice-president Eduard Romeu recently admitted that the Argentina captain’s signing was financially feasible as he would be coming in on a free transfer.
But how the unpaid wages and his potential salary demands for the upcoming seasons could affect Barcelona’s plans to re-sign Messi next summer remains to be seen.
