#1 Barcelona Lack Funds
Last season it was revealed that the Catalans are in a bowl of hot water after their finances were leaked to the public. According to reports, Barcelona was 1.2 billion euros in debt, which was mostly caused due to the mismanagement of the club. The Catalans were always a club that preferred to play homegrown players over buying pre-established superstars however, after the sale of Neymar to PSG, all that changed.
The Blaugrana went on a buying frenzy, signing the likes of Ousmane Dembele, Antoine Griezmann, and Philippe Coutinho, all for more than 100 million euros. These were all big money flops and thus a lot of the budget was wasted. Apart from wasting resources on transfers, Barcelona also has the highest wage structure in all of Europe but we will get more into that in the next section. As of now, the Catalans do not have the funds to offer Messi the wages they did back in 2017.