Sources: Barca set to open Messi contract talks
Moises Llorens
Sam Marsden
Barcelona are set to open talks with Lionel Messi to increase the ahead’s contract till 2023, sources have informed ESPN FC.
Messi, 32, is within the ultimate two years of his deal and Barca are eager to get him to decide to Camp Nou past 2021. It could be the 10th contract he has signed with the Catalans since his first skilled deal in 2004.
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Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu will lead the negotiations with Messi’s father, Jorge, who additionally acts as his agent. There is a clause in Messi’s contract to increase the phrases by an extra 12 months till 2022, however Bartomeu is eager to achieve a very new settlement to tie him to the membership for 4 extra years, when he shall be 36.
Bartomeu is conscious Messi’s most important curiosity will not be solely monetary and hopes to supply him one of the best squad potential as Barca proceed to hunt their first Champions League trophy since 2015.
The Barca president informed ESPN FC in an interview in April he deliberate to supply Messi a lifetime contract at some stage, regardless of the very fact his mandate ends in 2021. Messi final renewed in 2017, though for some time there was some uncertainty about his future as he was allowed to maneuver into the ultimate 12 months of his contract.
The membership introduced the deal in June, with Messi’s father penning the phrases of the settlement earlier than Neymar’s world-record transfer to Paris Saint-Germain, but it surely wasn’t till November that Messi finally signed the contract.
That was the ninth skilled deal and the eighth contract renewal Messi signed with the membership, lifting his launch clause to €700 million. Messi signed his first skilled deal in 2004, extending twice in 2005 and once more in 2007, penning phrases till 2014 with a €150m launch clause.
A 12 months later, following the departure of Ronaldinho, he signed one other new deal and, in 2009, after serving to Pep Guardiola’s Barca win the treble, he signed a seven-year cope with a €250m buyout.
Regardless of having a contract till 2016, in the beginning of 2013, Messi signed one other new deal after which prolonged once more in 2014, simply earlier than the World Cup, earlier than signing his most up-to-date deal in 2017.
Messi has all the time maintained that he wish to finish his profession “at residence” in Barcelona.
Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets each signed prolonged phrases final season, leaving Rafinha as the one participant within the squad who’s out of contract subsequent summer season. Ivan Rakitic, Arturo Vidal and Luis Suarez’s offers all expire in 2021, like Messi’s.