clippedgull
Hotdogs, extra onions
The Barcelona striker Lionel Messi will become the first £1m-a-week player in a new deal to be signed this month.
Messi’s gross pay under the four-year deal has been set at an annual £54.8m, according to a club source, and will take football salaries to an extraordinary new level.
If the contract runs for its full term, by which stage the Argentina international will be 34, Barca are committed to paying him £220m — and that is before performance-related bonuses.
Messi’s deal will put him ahead of his great rival, Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid, who earns a reported £365,000 a week after tax, although Ronaldo’s overall earnings put him in front.
It means Messi’s £223,000 fine for tax fraud will cost him less than two days’ wages and is good news for Antonella Roccuzzo, whom he married in their home city of Rosario in Argentina last weekend.