Lionel Messi has, by one reckoning, become a billionaire. Forbes now puts the Argentine's fortune at around $1.1bn, a figure Marca carried this week, and it lifts him into football's smallest and most exclusive club. Only Cristiano Ronaldo keeps him company at that altitude.
The timing is pointed. Messi, 39, crossed the mark days after finishing a World Cup runner-up, Spain having beaten Argentina in the 2026 final. A billion to his name, a silver medal round his neck. It is a fortune built over 23 seasons, and lately off the pitch as much as on it.
How the maths adds up
Most of it was earned on the pitch. Forbes and others estimate Messi has banked roughly $1.6bn in career salary across 23 seasons and more: about $700m over some 17 years at Barcelona, around 40m euros a year at Paris Saint-Germain, and now the richest deal in Major League Soccer.
At Inter Miami he is the league's highest-paid player, on guaranteed compensation of about $28.3m in 2026, with a base near $12m. That is only half the story. Co-owner Jorge Mas said in March that, once you fold in Apple's MLS Season Pass revenue share, the Adidas and Fanatics tie-ins, bonuses and equity, Messi collects something like $70m to $80m a year in Florida alone.
The equity is the clever part. Messi holds an ownership option in Inter Miami, a club whose valuation has climbed from roughly $585m before he arrived to somewhere between $1.35bn and $1.45bn today. He helped build the asset he owns a slice of.
The off-pitch empire
Then there is the endorsement machine, worth around $70m a year on its own. A lifetime deal with Adidas anchors it, alongside Apple, PepsiCo, Mastercard, Budweiser, Gatorade and Fanatics. Forbes put his total 2026 earnings, on and off the pitch, at about $140m.
He has taken the paid ambassador route too. Messi fronts Visit Saudi, the kingdom's tourism arm, for a reported $25m over three years. That is a separate matter from the Saudi Pro League playing offer, said to be worth close to $1bn, that he turned down before choosing Miami. His own ventures include the Mas+ hydration drink, launched in June 2024, plus stakes in production and hotels. Little of that income depends on him still playing.
Why the figure is contested
None of this is settled. The $1.1bn belongs to Forbes and Marca; other outlets are more cautious, pegging Messi nearer $850m to $950m as of early 2026. Net worth figures are educated guesses, sensitive to how you value private equity, image rights and a club option that has not been cashed in. A net worth is not a bank balance. It is an accountant's read on the whole portfolio: salary saved, sponsorship money banked, equity marked to a market that moves. Read the billion with that caveat attached.
The comparison that matters is Ronaldo, long the sport's benchmark for earnings and the only other footballer in or around the ten-figure bracket. For the best part of two decades the pair chased each other's numbers on the pitch. They are doing it on the balance sheet now.
What Messi does next, at 39 and days on from that final defeat, is the open question. His Inter Miami deal, his equity option and the Adidas lifetime arrangement all reach well beyond his playing days. The football is winding down. The business is only getting started.
Sources
- Forbes
- Marca
- Sports Illustrated
- Investormint
- Cover photo: Florent Torchut / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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