Lionel Messi has agreed a new five-year contract extension at Barcelona.
However, his salary to be reduced by 50 per cent under terms of the new deal.
Messi was officially a free agent as of July 1, after he failed to agree fresh terms before his previous contract expired on June 30.
The 34-year-old has now agreed to stay on at his boyhood club for another five years, meaning he will be 39 by the time his new deal runs out – when he will have totalled 26 years on the club’s books.
Messi sparked an acrimonious transfer row in August last year, when he officially informed the club his wish to activate a clause in his contract which would have seen him leave for free.
However, La Liga president Javier Tebas and Josep Maria Bartomeu – Barcelona president at the time – blocked the move, indicating that the clause was only active until June 10 and any suitor would have to pay his €700m release clause in full.