Umm he was on a 4 year 555 million contract.
That's like 2.7 million per week.
More than our entire salary is now probably.
Yeah, that was never confirmed, although the reports were pretty confident.
I mean tho. Still better value than Coutinho, Umtiti, Alba, Coutinho. Messi is a one off. I'm not saying it was ok for him to take the money and it didn't help ruin Barca. But he had a claim on it. Commercial income and performance are light years ahead of anyone else.
The rest didn't have any claim on earning more than the top 20 performers in Europe's big leagues. At all. Twice Lewa's pay, three times Yaya / Sergio.
It is true tho that Atletico and Real made howlers in that period, Hazard, Jan Oblak. Still, Hazard was the prem's number one by most accounts. Bale was a galactico. The step above Lewa. Bayern got in a bit of a mess with Sane and others. Utd went nuts. But none of them were doing what Barca did, because it's not one deal, it was the sum total of the madness.
Coutinho - never a galactico. Never in a million years. A top 4 / elite CL player who was in rich form. There's dozens of them. And it's the timing, the massive increases, and the ages of the Barca renewals that adds to this. Busquets is the oldest man in football except Pepe, Alba, these guys were renewed on such incredible terms that took them right to the end of their careers.
You can see how Messi's failed move for free in 2020 brought down Bartolemeu - that's what I'm getting at. Barto was giving the money out to pay for his job. As soon as Messi wasn't seen as supportive, Barto was toast. Messi had a claim on the whole club, sporting, image, economics. He would have done anyway despite Barto being weak beyond belief.