Lionel Messi tops MLS rich list – but is being paid triple what is billed

Lionel Messi is earning a staggering end-of-career payday in the United States.

Having left Paris Saint-Germain in rather acrimonious fashion in the summer, the Argentine great rejected the advances of Saudi Arabia and headed stateside to join Inter Miami. Naturally, the presence of arguably the greatest player of all time has swelled interest in Major League Soccer.

It has also swelled Messi’s already colossal bank balance. With refreshing transparency, the MLS Players’ Association publishes players’ salaries and, as you would expect, the 36-year-old leads the way by some distance.

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Messi pockets almost £17million annually. That’s a base salary of just under £10m, plus ‘guaranteed compensation’ which includes extras like a marketing bonus. To put that in perspective, he receives more than the entire squad combined of all but three MLS clubs, and twice as much as every player combined at Floridian rivals Orlando City, who have a payroll of just £8m.

Messi’s wages account for 4% of the MLS’s combined payroll of £412m. Next up is Toronto FC’s Lorenzo Insigne, whose combined base salary and compensation is just under £13m. In third is former Liverpool and Stoke forward Xherdan Shaqiri on a combined £6.7m.

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But that still doesn’t tell the full story of Messi’s earning power in the US, where he is on a deal until 2025. He in fact earns three times the aforementioned figure.

They do not account for additional deals with the club and its sponsors, nor his performance bonuses. Messi is also the centre of a lucrative Apple TV documentary about his arrival in Miami, which is earning him a sizeable sum. Club owner Jorge Mas disclosed earlier this year that his star player’s annual take-home pay was actually between £41m and £50m.

Messi enjoyed a productive, albeit brief, first season with Miami, making a total of five MLS appearances, scoring one goal as the team missed out on a place in the play-offs. He was prolific in the new Leagues Cup though, scoring 10 goals in seven games as Miami won the competition.

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