Can the beautiful game get uglier than this?

[Elite_Pie]

Ironically I think there's a lot of sentiment involved in this, with Messi and Guardiola wanting to link up again, but I agree if you're going to spend huge money like that and be the biggest and most successful team for the next decade, invest in the young wonderkid, not the ageing maestro.

Shuuusshhh. We need to keep Cal Roberts as long as we can.

[maddogslater]

Back to the OP, that amount of money is grotesque Sid. It's why I gave up watching the Premier League years ago. Nobody deserves that salary, definitely not a tax evading football player. Football sold its soul a long time ago.

Me too, sadly watching MOTD is a distant memory for me, it was such a better game in the 70s 80s

[Notts78]

Messi is being lined up for a 5 year contract owned by the group that own Man City and New York City. The plan being reported is that he will be paid the best part of 650m of which 250m will be paid as a bonus to join New York in 3 years. These are rough figures from memory.
The reality is that the group that own City and New York will get that money back in various Messi related sponsorship deals. Especially if as reported he ends up in the MLS.

[queenslandpie]

Does it? Or should it be calculated over the rest of his life?

Are you suggesting that after the deals up he won't another penny?

[tripie]

No, they've quoted that as salary but have either made it up, or are just guessing.

The answer is that they are just guessing and using a figure already in peoples heads to give it some sort of credibility. Notice none of the better media outlets are going with this story. Messi is on about 60m Euros wages at the moment. Even he won't double his wages at 33 or 34 depending when he moves. Although if you add in all of his other sponsorships and endorsements the total he gets over the next few years won't be too far from the figures quoted but that's a different story.

[Elite_Pie]

To put the ugliness in some sort of context, the FA Cup has just started. The winners at the earliest stage will get £1,125, and the losers £375.
If the figures in the OP are correct, Messi would earn the winner's prize in less than 5 minutes, and the loser's in just over one and a half minutes. These clubs are the grass roots of the game, and I'm sure that is welcome money to them. I know those at the top deserve a bigger slice of the cake, but just like real life the difference between top and bottom is obscene.

[SwalePie]

Why does this thread carry the O/T:- prefix? I could understand if it was posted on a politics message board.

Good point - fixed.

[tied_up_in_notts]

If I had to move house from Barcelona to Manchester I'd want 10 million quid a month too

[Old_pie]

Are you suggesting that after the deals up he won't another penny?

Who knows what will happen? But I'd expect he's not on a fixed football income for life with a final salary pension guaranteed either so if I were in his fortunate position I would be looking at it keeping me to the life I'm accustomed for the rest of my expected days and so I think it unfair to look at the figures purely over the contract period.

[ncfcog]

Good point - fixed.

Ah, I always thought it was anything “not Notts” required an off topic prefix?