Barcelona is facing bankruptcy. High wages for players has been cited as one of the reasons the giant club may go under. it’s been revealed their first-team squad pick up an incredible £235m a year in wages.

In order to stay afloat, Barcelona will be required to trim their huge wage bill by £170M

Messi who is the club captain and their star player earns £65m in a year. This is before factoring in bonuses.

It means his average wage works out at around £988,000 per week, with bonus payments reaching as much as £13m a year.

Through Catalan radio station RAC1, it has been reported that the club is actively engaging its players to take a 30% wage cut. If the players do not agree on those terms by November 5th, the club might go bankrupt on January.

The covid-19 has really hit hard on the La Liga giants. In early October, the club announced a loss of £88m and the figure is expected to rise in the coming days.

Player wages

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Messi is not the only player making insane amounts of money. Antoine Greizemann and Philippe Coutinho are earning weekly £295,000 and £180,000 respectively.

After club president Josep Maria Bartomeu resigned, a new board helmed by Carles Tusquets is in charge until next year’s elections.

Tusquets stated: “The pandemic has affected Barcelona particularly hard. The club depends on tourism and now, all of that income has been lost.

“The situation is not very comfortable, we have to take on the ideas of the previous board to find a way of addressing the problems we are facing.”