The highly anticipated Lionel Messi interview with Sport and Mundo Deportivo has now been released, with the player himself confirming that he will be moving to Inter Miami this summer. He joins the likes of Gareth Bale, Giorgio Chiellini, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, former Argentina teammate Gonzalo Higuain and club owner David Beckham himself to have moved to the United States after their chapters in Europe.
The Argentine left PSG upon the expiry of his contract with them, and will be making the move to the MLS as a free agent. He was strongly linked with a return to Barcelona this summer. His father and agent, Jorge Messi, revealed that the 8-time Ballon d’Or winner was prioritising a return to Catalonia, which has been confirmed in the interview. But, he has also revealed exactly why the move could not go through.
There was also a €1.2 billion offer from Saudi Arabia, which was turned down in favour of a move to Miami. Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kante have already made the move to the Gulf State, following mega-money offers made to them. The player has acknowledged the offer and has provided the reasons as to why he didn’t want to move there.
Lionel Messi interview: Inter Miami transfer confirmed
“I made the decision that I’m going to go to Miami,” Messi said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo and Sport newspapers.
“I still haven’t closed it 100%. I’m still missing a few things, but we decided to go ahead. If Barcelona didn’t work out, I wanted to leave Europe, get out of the spotlight and think more about my family.”
“I really wanted and was very excited about being able to return, but on the other hand, after experiencing what I experienced and the way I left, I didn’t want to be in the same situation again: waiting to see what would happen and leaving my future in someone else’s hands,” he admitted.
“Although I heard that LaLiga had accepted everything and that everything was fine for me to come back, there were still many other things that needed to happen. I heard that they had to sell players or reduce players’ salaries, and the truth is that I didn’t want to go through that or take responsibility for something related to all of that. I have already been accused of many things that were not true in my career at Barcelona, and I was already a bit tired; I didn’t want to go through all of that,” Messi revealed.
“The last time I had to leave, LaLiga had also accepted my registration, but in the end, it couldn’t be done. Well, I was afraid that the same thing would happen again, and I would have to rush around like before when I had to come here to Paris and stay in a hotel for a long time with my family, with my children going to school and still being in the hotel… I wanted to make my own decision, and that’s why my return to Barça didn’t happen. Although I would have loved to, it couldn’t be done.”
“After winning the World Cup and not being able to go to Barca, it was time to go to the U.S. league to experience football in a different way and enjoy the day-to-day,” Messi said.
“Obviously with the same responsibility and desire to want to win and to always do things well. But with more peace of mind.”
“If it had been a question of money, I would have gone to Arabia or elsewhere where they offered me a lot of money,” Lionel Messi said.
Lionel Messi interview: What kind of deal has the player accepted?
Messi wanted to move to a club where he would be able to have an ownership stake when he retired. And that is what he seems to have done with the move to Miami. The player will also receive a cut of the profits they make from the additional sponsors after his arrival.
The decision to move to Miami has also been around his family, where they have a house already and they enjoy staying in. As a result, this has emerged as the more favourable option for the 35-year-old over a transfer to Barcelona where he would be in the spotlight and under pressure once again.
Miami will be a very different challenge for Lionel Messi in terms of matters on the pitch, as they are last in the table right now. But, with arguably the greatest player of all-time in their line-up, they can expect a significant turnaround in their fortunes on the pitch. They have recently sacked their head coach, Phil Neville, and will be looking to get things going on the pitch with the arrival of the Argentine.
