Ronald Koeman didn’t hide his annoyance at Tuesday’s press-conference previewing Barcelona‘s Copa del Rey trip to Granada tomorrow. Much of the conversation surrounded the leak of Lionel Messi‘s contract and the subsequent fallout.
“It’s something absurd, you’ve been with this issue for three or four days,” he told the assembled media in comments carried by Mundo Deportivo. “The team and Leo have responded in the way that I like, which is to try to put the things that appear in the press aside and focus on the match and the game.”
Messi is preparing to take legal action against the newspaper El Mundo according to RAC1. They on Sunday morning leaked details of the Argentine’s lucrative contract with the Catalan club.
The revelation came at the end of a week that has seen Barcelona news dominated by talk around the club’s precarious financial situation, with much of the blame being laid at the door of the previous board led by Josep Maria Bartomeu.
The contract, including variables, amounts to a grand total of €555,237,619. According to the report, 92% of the variables stipulated in the contract have already been fulfilled, meaning that the total salary Messi has earned is €511,540,545.
Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City are keenly interested in securing his services when he becomes a free agent this summer, and the Argentine is said to be furious at the leak.
