Lionel Messis decision to hand in a transfer request at Barcelona is set to trigger a scramble for his signature.

But how many clubs would be willing and able to afford someone many consider the greatest footballer of all time? Here, Telegraph Sport breaks down the potential cost of signing Messi.

This could prove the key to Messi being allowed to leave Barca at all this summer. His contract has a buyout clause worth a staggering 700 million (631.3m). Strangely, the same four-year deal, signed in 2017, also contains a clause allowing him to leave for nothing at the end of every season until June of this year. In his transfer request, Messi asked for that clause to be honoured now because last season had been artificially extended due to the coronavirus crisis. Barca are refusing to budge and are reportedly insisting on a world-record transfer fee in excess of 200m. Spending that on any other 33-year-old would be madness but some clubs may view signing Messi as worth the gamble.

Even if Messi secures a free transfer, he is likely to command an astronomical signing-on fee. The one he secured when he last extended his Barca contract totalled 133.5m (120m) over the course of the deal. The size of it was said to be partly to compensate him over his conviction for tax fraud. But, transfer fee or no transfer fee, any club wanting to bring in Messi would also likely need to fork out a signing-on fee costing tens of millions of pounds.

Messis fixed weekly Barca wage before tax is 1.37m (1.23m), or 60.4m (54.3m) a year. To put that in context, the Premier Leagues highest paid player ever, Alexis Sanchez, was on less than half that at Manchester United. Paying Messi somewhere near what he earns at the Nou Camp would therefore shatter the wage structure of any club.

Visit link:
How much for Lionel Messi? Anatomy of one of the most complicated transfers in history - Telegraph.co.uk