Is it? This is what you get when half of the clubs are broke due to the fact that oil and Russian retirement funds have inflated the game beyond saving. All the old big clubs are struggling to keep up and some of them have even accepted they're new status. This problem will only get worse if the ones running the game won't step in and try to fix this.
Nobody should be paying a 37 year old Ronaldo over 300k and Messi shouldn't be getting anywhere near 35-50m a year as a 34 year old. And the thing is nobody can do it except?
They should've stepped in much earlier. Even before Chelsea, the big clubs completely dominated the market and could just buy success. It had started being an at least somewhat fair competition even back then.
Moreover, the clubs have themselves to blame. Nobody forced Barca to burn hundreds of millions of cash for Galactico signings. Nobody forced Madrid to build a stadium for €550m instead of investing the money into their squad. Or paying Bale €40m (?) a year. Let's not forget that not too long ago, Barca was the first club to break the €1bn mark in revenue. Messi would've gone nowhere if they didn't screw up royally.