Luis Suarez has leapt to the defence of Lionel Messi following the revelations around his 2020 contract at Barcelona. 

Last week, El Mundo revealed the stipulations Messi demanded to stay with Barca, which included a massive signing-on bonus of £8.7million and a private jet to fly his family back to Argentina at  Christmas. 

He also requested a luxury executive box at the Nou Camp for his family and the family of former Barca team-mate Luis Suarez. 

Luis Suarez has come to the defence of Lionel Messi over his 2020 contract demands

The Uruguayan has now defended his former team-mate regarding the demand for his families to share a box and stated it's nothing out of the ordinary, and that it benefitted the club. 

'It amuses me. It is something very normal in any player'. The 35-year-old told Marca.  

'If you check the contracts of any elite footballer, they should all have their box. I, for example, at Atletico Madrid, had mine; in Nacional, too.

'That's why all this speculation amuses me. Actually, Leo's thing was to try to make life easier for the club because, being shared by our two families, it was just a box.

'It was more difficult for Barca if Suarez had one and Messi had another [laughs].' 

Barcelona have threatened to take legal action against the Spanish newspaper saying the leaked information was part of a judicial procedure.

The leak has also infuriated Messi's camp who said they would also be looking to prepare a lawsuit against El Mundo.

The information was said to have been recovered from emails between Jorge Messi, Lionel's father and representative, the 35-year-old's legal team, and Barcelona chiefs including then-president Josep Bartomeu. 

As well as the box at the Nou Camp, other demands in the June 2020 negotiations  included lowering his buyout clause from £610m to a nominal fee of just £8,700 after accepting a 20 per cent pay cut in 2020-21 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he asked for his net salary of £65m a year to be increased to £71.5m a year for the next two seasons, plus three per cent in annual interest.

El Mundo report Barcelona accepted all of Messi's demands except two: refusing to lower his release clause to £8,700 and making the £8.7m signing-on bonus conditional on the club returning to their pre-pandemic income, which was and is unlikely given their well-publicised financial issues.

Due to this, the 162-cap international quit negotiations, culminating the infamous 'Burofax' sent to the club to inform them of his desire to leave.

Spanish newspaper El Mundo had previously leaked the details of Messi's gargantuan £492m (€555m) contract - the biggest in sports history - taking into account fixed salary, image rights, variables and tax.

Messi and Suarez enjoyed a profitable relationship together at Barcelona, forming a lethal trio alongside Neymar known as 'MSN'. 

In three seasons the front three scored an incredible 363 goals combined and helped Barcelona to win the treble in 2015. 

Suarez left Barcelona in 2020 to join Atletico Madrid, and is now back in Uruguay playing for his first club Nacional. However, he's set to leave when his contract expires in November ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.