Just ten days after Lionel Messi signalled his intention to end his 20-year association with Barcelona, he has been forced to stay.
In an exclusive interview with Goal, Messi confirmed he will remain at the club for the 2020/21 campaign – but against his wishes.
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The 33-year-old claimed president Josep Maria Bartomeu broke his promise to him that he could leave at the end of the season after telling the club ‘all year’ he wanted a new challenge.
Messi – who was the subject of interest from Manchester City – handed in a transfer request at the end of last month in which he expressed a desire to exercise a clause in his contract, allowing him to leave for free with immediate effect.
But Barca have maintained that the clause expired in June and was no longer valid, and have been insistent he will not be sold for anything less than his €700million (£625m) release clause.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,” Messi said.
“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.
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“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.”
Unsurprisingly, City had no intention of activating the forward’s eye-watering release clause. Thus there was only one way out if Messi was to leave: taking his beloved Barcelona to court.
That was something the six-time Ballon d’Or winner never considered doing though. He will, therefore, remain at the club for at least another 10 months.
“There was another way and it was to go to trial,” he explained. “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.”
Describing the toll this ordeal has had on his family, Messi added: “Mateo is still little and he doesn’t realise what it means to go somewhere else and make your life a few years elsewhere.
“Thiago, he is older. He heard something on TV and found out something and asked.
“I didn’t want him to know anything about being forced to leave, to have to live in a new school, or make new friends.
“He cried to me and said, ‘Let’s not go’. I repeat that it was hard, really.
“It was understandable. It happened to me. It is very difficult to make a decision.”
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