Lionel Messi was on the verge of leaving Barcelona in the summer but then-president Josep Maria Bartomeu refused to let him go and he eventually remained at Barcelona.
Bartomeu has now resigned and a new president will be elected on 24th January. The new president may have a huge role to play in Lionel Messi’s future at Barcelona.
Messi has now given an exclusive interview with La Sexta’s Jordi Evole. Here’s what he had to say about his wish to leave Barcelona in the summer:
Evole: Would you send the burofax again if you had to?
Messi: Yes, it was a manner of making a point and expressing my feelings. It was me telling the club that I wanted to leave.
Evole: There were those who doubted your love for the club at the time…
Messi: Yes, that bothered me … I felt I’d completed a cycle and it was time to leave the club that had given me so much. I wanted to win titles and battle for the Champions League and felt it was time for change. The president then started to filter this and that to paint a negative picture of me.
Messi: It was far from easy for me to say I wanted to leave the club and the city….the family wanted to stay here, this is their home but I genuinely felt it was time to go. Luis Suarez’s departure had nothing to do with the decision but I felt it was crazy the way his exit was handled and that Barcelona let him go to a direct rival.
Evole: How did you feel betrayed by Bartomeu?
Messi: I’d rather not comment on this now…it will come out in the future but there were plenty of things…
Evole: Were you advised by your legal team to stay?
Messi: No, although talking to them, they even conveyed the idea that we’d win a legal battle, but that was the last thing I wanted.
Stay tuned we’ll be bringing in more exclusive conversations from the interview.
