The impact on Barcelona as Messi shirts are returned

As news broke wild of Lionel Messi's move to Paris Saint-Germain, all Barcelona shirts with Messi's No.10 for the 2021/22 season disappeared from the shelves.

Although no huge economic losses from this are expected, it will be Nike's job to decide what happens to the shirts once they are returned.

Barcelona have around two months to return the Messi shirts for the upcoming season to the North American multinational headquarters.

This is standard procedure for shirts that have already been printed before a player leaves a club, for instance with Neymar back in 2017.

Messi accounts for 80 percent of shirt sales

According to a variety of studies, around eight out of ten Barcelona shirts that are sold had Messi's No.10 printed on the back, which meant an income of between 20 and 30 million euros per season for the Catalan club.

The general director of Diagonal Inversiones, Marc Ciria, explained following Messi's departure that they are hoping Memphis Depay's shirts will sell at a good pace after this blow.

"He could feature on five out of every ten shirts sold and thus avoid a drop in sales of more than 30 percent in the short term," Ciria noted.

Barcelona's shirts for the 2021/22 have been on sale ever since June 16, meaning fans have had two months to purchase their Messi shirts for the upcoming season, while it was taken for granted that the Argentine would be staying at the Camp Nou.