New deal makes Messi world’s ‘best-paid’ player
>> BARCELONA: Barcelona’s Argentinian striker Lionel Messi, who recently extended his contract with the Catalan club, is “the best paid player in the world,” club president Josep Maria Bartomeu said Friday.
Barcelona announced Wednesday that Messi had agreed to extend his contract until 2021, in a deal that will keep the five times winner of the Ballon D’Or at the club until he is 34.
No financial terms were disclosed but Bartomeu told the Barcelona sports daily Mundo Deportivo: “He is the best player in the world and he is paid like the best in the world and in the history of football.
“He is the best paid sports player, because no one brings as much to his club as Leo Messi.”
Prior to his contract extension, Messi was the third highest paid sportsman in the world with an income of US$80 million, of which $53 million was in salary and bonuses, according the ranking published by Forbes magazine in June.
His great rival, Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, topped the ranking with $93 million, of which $58 million was in salary and bonuses, ahead of American basketball player LeBron James ($86.2 million of which $31.2 million was in salary and bonuses).
Meanwhile, striker Fernando Torres will stay at Atletico Madrid until the end of next season after signing a contract extension, the La Liga club announced.
The former Spain international’s contract had run out, but he will now stay at Atletico until June 30, 2018.
The capital-city side are under a transfer ban, but it has been a successful close-season so far for coach Diego Simeone, having also seen key forward Antoine Griezmann pen a new deal to keep him at the club until 2022.
“I am really happy to continue one more year together,” Torres said on the club’s website.
Torres joined Atletico’s academy at the age of 11, and went on to score 91 goals in 244 games for the senior team from 2001-2007.
He rejoined his boyhood club from Chelsea, where he won the 2012 Champions League title, in 2015 on loan, before signing a permanent contract last summer.