Argentine great Lionel Messi is set to extend his stay at Barcelona by signing a new five-year deal, La Vanguardia newspaper and ESPN reported on Wednesday.
Reports state that "Messi has accepted a significant wage reduction to prolong his stay".
Messi is Barca's all-time top scorer and there was no clarity when his 21-year association with the club, for all purposes, came to an end after his contract expired last season.
The 34-year-old has won 35 titles in 17 seasons with Spanish giants. He helped the club win the Champions League four times, La Liga 10 times, the Copa del Rey seven times and the Spanish Super Cup eight times.
Messi excelled again last season despite making numerous attempts to leave the club. He led the Spanish league in scoring with 30 goals and helped the team win the Copa del Rey title.
Messi's last contract was signed in 2017. It was the most lucrative in world sport according to report in newspaper El Mundo.
Barcelona have been making serious efforts to reduce their wage bill in order to hold on to Messi and adhere to La Liga's financial rules.
Last week, La Liga chief Javier Tebas was quoted by Reuters as saying Barcelona, who have a total debt of more than $1 billion, will not be shown leniency. "If no player leaves, it's impossible," he said.
The club have been trying to rebuild the squad with Junior Firpo, Jean-Clair Todibo and Carles Alena being sold to make way for free signings Sergio Aguero, Memphis Depay and Eric Garcia.
It has been a fairly positive week for Messi, who won his first major international title with Argentina when they beat Brazil in the Copa America final. Messi was named the tournament's joint best player along with Neymar after finishing as the joint top goalscorer.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.