Lionel Messi, his 100 million-euros-a-season deal and his 'tax saving' charity

By and Raphaël Buschmann, Michael Wulzinger et Nicola Naber (Der Spiegel)

Barcelona's star Lionel Messi has become the first footballer in the world to be on a 100-million-euros a year contract, according to documents supplied by whistle-blowing platform Football Leaks and revealed by Mediapart and other members of the journalistic consortium European Investigative Collaborations (EIC). They show that the Argentine player signed a four-year deal with the Catalan club worth more than 400 million euros to keep him at the club until 2021. Mediapart and the EIC can also reveal that Messi's club Barcelona helped him pay millions of euros in back taxes in relation to his children's charity after they were advised that some club donations to it should have been classified as salary payments. Yann Philippin, Rafael Buschmann, Michael Wulzinger, Nicola Naber (Der Spiegel) and Paula Guisado (El Mundo) report.

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Lionel Messi has become the first footballer in the world to be on a contract worth 100 million euros a season, Mediapart and other European media can reveal. Documents supplied by Football Leaks and revealed by the journalistic consortium European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), of which Mediapart is a member, show that on June 30th, 2017, the same day he married his fiancée Antonella Roccuzzo, the Argentine star had agreed a four-year-deal with Barcelona worth more than 400 million euros which will keep him at the Catalan club until 2021.

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