Antoine Griezmann’s contract with Barcelona has been leaked. The Catalan sports newspaper Sport assures Saturday evening that he is in possession of the documents that the attacker and the policymakers of los Azulgrana signed on July 10, 2019. Sport will release all contract details on Monday both online and in the paper edition, but will already have some striking numbers on Saturday.
Griezmann, who has been loaned to Atlético Madrid this season, would have earned a total of 95 million euros gross in fixed salary if he had served out his five-year contract with Barcelona. Although there has been plenty of speculation in the past two years about the Frenchman’s sky-high salary, and therefore also about his disappointing performance, the exact figures were never known until Saturday.
In his first year, Griezmann received an amount of seventeen million euros gross and another million euros was added in the past football year: eighteen million euros gross in 2021/22. Each season, a million euros was added: this season he was on the payroll for 19 million euros and in 2022/23 and 2023/24 the attacker would have made 20 million euros and 21 million euros respectively.
Sport writes that Griezmann’s earnings were much higher, however, due to all sorts of variable bonuses based on matches played, prizes and individual awards. Catalonia’s best-selling sports newspaper will announce all the details on Monday. It is unclear how the daily came into possession of the documents that the world champion signed in the summer of 2019.
Atlético pay Barcelona a rental fee of ten million euros for Griezmann. Next season there is the possibility that the attacker will be hired again, if both clubs agree. At the end of the lease, in mid-2022 or mid-2023, the Madrid top club must raise a mandatory option to purchase forty million euros. Griezmann left for Barcelona in the summer of 2019 for 120 million euros: the transfer clause in his ongoing contract as Colchonero.
Barcelona thus saves a cost of nineteen million euros gross this season, while Atlético and Griezmann quickly came to an agreement about his salary. He will earn ten million euros net this season and that is probably also the annual salary once he finally starts working at the Wanda Metropolitano. In comparison: Luis Suárez, Koke and Jan Oblak are on the payroll for sixteen million euros, gross.