Messi will stay in Barcelona!
Barcelona fans worldwide would breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their legend and club captain Lionel Messi would remain at the Camp Nou for another year, at least.
Messi will see out the final year of his contract at Barcelona after taking time to speak in an interview with Goal, clearing the air on his current transfer saga.
Speaking in a video interview with Goal, Messi said: “I wasn’t happy and I wanted to leave. I have not been allowed this in any way and I will STAY at the club so as not to get into a legal dispute. The management of the club led by Bartomeu is a disaster”.
“I’ll continue at Barcelona and my attitude won’t change, no matter how much I have wanted to go,” he added.
“I told the club & the president that I wanted to go. I’ve been telling him all year.
“I thought my time in Barcelona was over, sadly – I always wanted to finish my career here.”
Messi had sent in an official transfer request to the Barcelona board last week, stating his desire to quit the Camp Nau, with reports of a sour relationship between him and the club president.
While Messi sought to walk free using the clause in his contract that allows him to leave Barcelona for free at the end of the season, the Barcelona hierarchy released a statement claiming that clause had expired due to the Covid-19 extension in football. They claimed any club willing to take the 33-year-old off their books would have to trigger his hefty €700million release clause.
“I thought and was sure that I was free to leave, the president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I stayed or not,” he continued.
“Now they cling to the fact that I did not say it before June 10, when it turns out that on June 10 we were competing for La Liga in the middle of this awful coronavirus and this disease altered all the season.
“And this is the reason why I am going to continue in the club. Now I am going to continue in the club because the president told me that the only way to leave was to pay the €700 million (£624m/$823m) clause, and that this is impossible.”
Messi was linked with a fairytale reunion with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, while Paris Saint-German tried to lure the Argentine to the French capital.
With Barcelona demanding his release clause paid, a move could only have been achieved if the 33-year-old took legal actions against the Catalan giants over his walk-free clause.
However, Messi reveals he could not take his childhood club with whom he has spent the last 19 years to court.
He said: “There was another way and it was to go to trial,” he added. “I would never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, which gave me everything since I arrived.
“It is the club of my life, I have made my life here.
“Barca gave me everything and I gave it everything. I know that it never crossed my mind to take Barca to court.”
