Paris Saint-Germain recruited the best player in the history of football, Lionel Messi, on a free transfer this summer. The player ended his 21-year-long journey with Barcelona owing to the La Liga wage cap rules.
He had an agreement in place with Barcelona to renew his contract for another two years. However, in the final stages of the process, the club informed Messi that they could not sign him due to the La Liga posing restrictions on the total money the club could spend, as well as their billion Euros’ worth of debt.
As a result, Messi left Barcelona and joined PSG as a free agent on a two-year deal. The Argentinian’s contract has the option to extend for another year if the two parties decide it is reasonable.
PSG sporting director Leonardo has now come out and confirmed that Messi’s original plans were to remain at Barcelona and possibly retire there. Here is what he had to say:
‘I can’t hide that we had contact before, but after January, when he had six months left on his contract. We never spoke to him before January 2021,’ he told Canal Plus.
‘I think his idea was to stay at Barca. Honestly, he was sure he didn’t want to go and he wanted to finish his career there.
‘But there ended the Messi story at Barcelona and ours began.
‘Imagining a player like Messi with the PSG shirt is something enormous and very nice.’
Lionel Messi wears the number 30 shirt for PSG and has made two appearances for the French club across all competitions so far.
