Barcelona owe Messi 63.5 million euros for non-payment of his contract this year

Barcelona's dire financial state has been much discussed, but it is worse than first thought, as the club have not paid their first-team players their entire salaries.

It is worth remembering that Blaugrana have a debt of 1.173 billion euros, of which 730 million euros is short-term debt.

Cadena COPE reported that the club owe part of the players' salaries, and one of those is Lionel Messi. Barcelona should have paid him 72 million euros before the end of January, yet only 8.5 million euros has been paid, meaning the club owe him 63.5 million euros across salary and image rights.

A few weeks ago, the Barcelona squad reached an agreement to defer part of this season's earnings over the next few years. This saved the club 172 million euros.

In fact, this agreement affected all of the players in the squad, including Messi. The four it did not affect are those that recently penned a new contract: Gerard Pique, Clement Lenglet, Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Frenkie de Jong.

Just a few days ago, it also emerged that the club had failed to pay money owed to B team players, which was eventually paid.

All of this is happening in the midst of a leak that has exposed the contract Messi has at Barcelona, with El Mundo showing that he put pen to paper on a deal worth 555,237,619 euros over the course of four seasons.