Barcelona: The Barcelona striker Lionel Messi will become the first £1m-a-week player in a new deal to be signed this month.

Messi's gross pay under the four-year deal has been set at an annual £54.8m, according to a club source, and will take football salaries to an extraordinary new level.

If the contract runs for its full term, by which stage the Argentina international will be 34, Barca are committed to paying him £220m - and that is before performance-related bonuses.

Messi's deal will put him ahead of his great rival, Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid, who earns a reported £365,000 a week after tax, although Ronaldo's overall earnings put him in front.

It means Messi's £223,000 fine for tax fraud will cost him less than two days' wages and is good news for Antonella Roccuzzo, whom he married in their home city of Rosario in Argentina last weekend.

Messi has become the best-paid player in European football by agreeing a four-year deal to extend his stay at Barcelona.

The Argentine's existing contract was set to expire in the summer of 2018 and whether at Camp Nou or elsewhere, it was never in doubt that he would land a major pay day.

Barca fans will be relieved he is staying put for the best part of the rest of his playing days on the back of a tumultuous past year or so on and off the pitch.

Before signing this deal, Messi was estimated to be worth £336,000, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale approximately £30,000 a week better off with their new deals. <>If the new £500,000 figure is accurate, then, he will be way ahead.(Agencies)