Barcelona captain and Argentina striker Lionel Messi took to social media to confirm that he along with his Barcelona team-mates will take pay cuts upto 70 percent. They took the decision to reduce losses for the club during Spain’s State of Emergency situation amid the coronavirus outbreak.

A translation of the statement on ESPN read as follows: “We want to clarify that our desire has always been for a reduction to be applied to our salaries because we understand that this is an exceptional situation and we are the first that have ALWAYS helped the club with what they have asked of us.”

“Many times we have even done things on our own accord, at moments when we felt it necessary or important to do so.”

“Apart from the reduction of 70 per cent from our salary, we will also make contributions so that club employees can collect 100 per cent of their salary while this situation lasts,” he added.

The coronavirus outbreak has created global pandemic which led to suspend La Liga, the Spanish football competition, since March 12. The tournament still stands indefinitely suspended and no one knows  when La Liga will resume.

Messi went  on saying in the statement, “It surprises us that within the club there were those who wanted to put us under scrutiny and tried to put us under pressure to do something that we always knew we would be doing.”

Spain has been one of the  hardest-hit nations in the world by the  pandemic. On Monday, Spain overtook China with more than 85,000 confirmed infections. It also reported 812 new deaths, taking the death toll to 7,340.

Barcelona said in a statement, that it delivered 30,000 masks to the Catalonia government to help fight the pandemic. The club said it was working through its foundation “to do as much as possible to help with the crisis, both locally and  internationally.”

“The club has put itself at the service of the health authorities to help to fulfill and enforce all its instructions, recommendations and orders to combat contagion of the virus and alleviate its effects as much as possible,” it said.