CELEBRITY
Barca must cut £170m wage bill to re-sign Messi
Barcelona will be unable to register any of their new signings or re-sign Lionel Messi to a new contract unless they find a way to trim £170m from their wage budget.
La Liga president Javier Tebas has said that Barcelona have exceeded their salary cap for the upcoming season, which has kick-started a mass exodus from the club.
Jean-Clair Todibo, Konrad de la Fuente, Junior Firpo and Francisco Trincao have all been sold or loaned and Matheus Fernandes has had his contract terminated, but that is only the start for Barcelona.
The club’s finances are completely short. They’re in debt to the tune of almost £1bn, but the more pressing concern is their wage structure, which has spiralled out of control so badly that, according to Goal, no new players can actually be registered yet.
Sergio Aguero, Memphis Depay, Eric Garcia and Emerson have all joined the club this summer, but because Barcelona are over their salary cap, they cannot be registered to play and it will stay that way unless they can cut an enormous £170m from their annual wage budget.
As Messi‘s contract has expired, he also classes as a ‘new player’, meaning Barcelona cannot afford to bring him back and register him unless they make some drastic changes.
There are hopes that Barcelona will be able to offload high-earners like Samuel Umtiti, Miralem Pjanic and Philippe Coutinho as well. That would free up around £55m from the budget, but because Barcelona’s wage spending is higher than their income, La Liga rules dictate they can only spend 25% of the money they save on wages for new players. That £55m freed up translates to just under £14m on new wages, which is nowhere near enough.
Because of that, Barcelona are expected to make some tough decisions on a handful of their older players. There have been plenty of rumours suggesting left-back Jordi Alba could be on his way out, and the same goes for midfielder Sergio Busquets, although there are hopes that the latter will agree to slash his salary with a new contract.
According to Mundo Deportivo, there could be at least five more departures from Camp Nou before the club can entertain the idea of re-signing Messi.
On top of Coutinho, Umtiti and Pjanic, Barcelona are likely to sell Neto, Martin Braithwaite and Carles Alena, but there have even been discussions over offloading some of the club’s top earners like Sergi Roberto or even Antoine Griezmann.
Roberto has one year remaining on his contract and has been made available for transfer, although there has been such little interest in him that Barcelona are even considering offering him a new contract.
There is so much work to be done before Barcelona can re-sign Messi. Former president Josep Maria Bartomeu ran the club into the ground with no thought, and new chief Joan Laporta is working tirelessly to try and piece things back together again.
Former England soccer captain David Beckham and actor Gary Oldman were knighted in King Charles’ annual birthday honours list on Saturday, while sculptor Antony Gormley was made a Companion of Honour.
Beckham, 50, joined Manchester United as a trainee in 1993, going on to make almost 400 appearances for the club where he won a string of titles and cups.
He subsequently played for Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, and Inter Milan, as well as captaining his country 58 times and making 115 appearances.
His marriage to fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham in 1999 cemented a celebrity status which went far beyond his sporting exploits.
Oldman, 67, started his career on the stage, where he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, before rising to prominence in film. He won the best actor Oscar for playing Winston Churchill in the 2017 drama “Darkest Hour”.
He also had roles in the “Dark Knight Trilogy” and the “Harry Potter” movie series and more recently starred in the TV spy drama “Slow Horses”.
Other famous names receiving honours included damehoods for musical theatre star Elaine Paige, novelist Pat Barker and ceramics maker Emma Bridgewater.
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of rock band the Who and a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, received a knighthood for services to charity.
More than 1,200 people received honours for their achievements, with a particular focus on those who had given their time to public service, the government said.
King Charles’ official birthday will be celebrated with the annual “Trooping the Colour” military parade in London on Saturday. His actual birthday is on November 14
-Reuters
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One of three judges in Diego Maradona’s closely scrutinized homicide trial in Argentina resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal triggered by the alleged filming of an unauthorised documentary, bringing uncertainty to the future of legal proceedings.
The high-profile trial over the death of soccer star Maradona began on March 11 in the South American country where the World Cup winner is still revered.
-Reuters
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For the third year in a row, and the fifth time overall, Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid athlete.
But at age 40, the Portuguese soccer superstar is reaching new highs.
Over the past 12 months, counting both his playing salary at Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr and his off-field business endeavors, Ronaldo collected an estimated $275 million before taxes and agent fees—the third-best year by an active athlete ever measured by Forbes.
On that all-time list, Ronaldo is surpassed only by boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned $300 million in 2015 and $285 million in 2018.
And when it comes to the 2025 leaderboard, Ronaldo has a $119 million advantage over No. 2, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
The League of Wealthy Sportsmen
The gap is especially impressive considering that Curry’s $156 million total is also a record for his sport, beating the NBA mark of $128.2 million set last year by LeBron James.
And there are plenty of other eye-popping paydays among this year’s 10 highest-paid athletes, starting with James, who notched a personal-best $133.8 million to land at No. 6. Meanwhile, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (No. 4, $137million) and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (No. 7, $114 million) broke records for the NFL and MLB.
Combined, the 10 highest-paid athletes brought in $1.4 billion, up slightly from last year’s $1.38 billion and the largest total since Forbes began ranking athlete earnings in 1990.
This year is also only the second time, after 2024, that every member of the top 10 made at least $100 million.
In fact, heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk ($101 million) and golfer Jon Rahm ($100 million) reached the milestone, too, without managing to crack this list.
For the third year in a row, and the fifth time overall, Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid athlete.
But at age 40, the Portuguese soccer superstar is reaching new highs.
Over the past 12 months, counting both his playing salary at Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr and his off-field business endeavors, Ronaldo collected an estimated $275 million before taxes and agent fees—the third-best year by an active athlete ever measured by Forbes.
On that all-time list, Ronaldo is surpassed only by boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned $300 million in 2015 and $285 million in 2018.
And when it comes to the 2025 leaderboard, Ronaldo has a $119 million advantage over No. 2, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
The gap is especially impressive considering that Curry’s $156 million total is also a record for his sport, beating the NBA mark of $128.2 million set last year by LeBron James.
And there are plenty of other eye-popping paydays among this year’s 10 highest-paid athletes, starting with James, who notched a personal-best $133.8 million to land at No. 6. Meanwhile, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (No. 4, $137million) and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (No. 7, $114 million) broke records for the NFL and MLB.
Combined, the 10 highest-paid athletes brought in $1.4 billion, up slightly from last year’s $1.38 billion and the largest total since Forbes began ranking athlete earnings in 1990.
This year is also only the second time, after 2024, that every member of the top 10 made at least $100 million.
In fact, heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk ($101 million) and golfer Jon Rahm ($100 million) reached the milestone, too, without managing to crack this list.
World’s Highest-Paid Athletes 2025
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