is different from Golden Ball Award again losing, Messi beat Ronaldo in the 2017-18 revenue list released by " French Football " and regained the title of "richest football" with 126 million euros. Not only that, the Barcelona star also became the first football player to earn more than 100 million euros.
Messi's re-appointment of the throne was largely due to the sky-high renewal of the contract with Barcelona in November last year. In the past year, Argentinians have had an annual salary plus signing fee of 86.9 million euros, not to mention other incomes such as bonuses and advertising endorsements.
Now, with the "repentance" of a seven-year unsolved case, Messi has another way to make money. On April 26, Beijing time, the European Court of Justice ruled that Messi could use his name brand "Messi" for sports equipment within the EU. Messi was unable to obtain the right due to a complaint from Spanish cycling equipment brand Massi.
As early as 2011, the owners of the Massi brand believed that "Messi" and "Massi" were too similar and easily caused misunderstandings among consumers in visual and voice. They appealed to the EU Intellectual Property Office EUIPO, demanding that Messi be deprived of the trademark use rights of his name. In 2013, the EUPO agreed to the request.
Due to this, Messi will not be able to claim his trademark in sports equipment, so the Barcelona star filed a complaint to the European Court of Justice in 2014. After a seven-year dispute, the European Court of Justice finally rejected the Massi brand’s appeal, citing Messi’s reputation as a counterbalance to these misunderstandings.
"In fact, Messi is a household name. We often see him on TV and the media often discusses him." The European Court of Justice said, "Even if some people don't know Messi, consumers of sports equipment must know him."
In addition to its own name brand "Messi", Messi also owned the hotel chain brand "Majestic i Messi" (MiM for short) last year. It is reported that the Argentinians have spent tens of millions of euros to acquire luxury hotels in Barcelona and resort Ibiza, and handed over to operate it by Majestic, a hotel management group in Catalonia .
However, compared with the personal brand CR7 of his old rival Ronaldo, Messi's MiM is still slightly inferior in popularity. After all, CR7 has expanded its territory in many fields, including clothing, casual shoes, underwear, perfume, blankets, etc. In addition, Ronaldo has cooperated with Pestana, the largest tourism and leisure group in Portugal, to open 5 boutique hotels named after CR7.
Interestingly, Ronaldo's sixth CR7 hotel was also planned to be developed in Ibiza, but Messi won the first place. It seems that the two heroes who compete on the court are also unwilling to fall behind in their business layout outside the court.
