Cashing in: Lionel Messi’s new contract will make him one of the highest paid sportsmen in the world

Lionel Messi will take football salaries to an extraordinary new level when he formally agrees a vastly improved four-year contract later this month. Barcelona are to pay their most important player a basic wage worth more than £1m a week.

Messi’s gross salary under the agreement announced by Barcelona has been set at an annual €62m (£54.8m), according to a club source. If the contract runs for its full term — by which stage the Argentina international will be 34 — Barça are committed to paying him £220m, before performance-related bonuses.

Although Messi has been consistently courted by — and encouraged the interest of — well-heeled suitors in Europe and Asia, Barça insist the decision to hand him football’s most lucrative playing contract was instigated