The headlines: Lionel Messi stays at Barcelona.
The fine print: This was not quite good news for the management at the club.
In a quite extraordinary interview on Friday with football website Goal, Messi announced his decision to remain at the club, at least for the time being.
In essence, where the actual football on the pitch next season is concerned, it must be relief for Barcelona fans. But Messi made it clear he had been forced to stay because president Josep Maria Bartomeu would not let him exercise a clause in his contract that allowed him to leave for free.
He’s being held hostage: Reactions to Lionel Messi’s decision to stay at Barcelona
Unsurprisingly, choosing to ignore everything else he said in the interview, Barcelona highlighted Messi’s pledge to give his all for the team by posting a picture of the striker on Instagram in the club’s new kit, with the caption: “I’m going to give my best. My love for Barça will never change”.
But one only has to see the video to know there is so much more behind the decision of the 33-year-old to extend his stay at the club into a third decade, at least by one year for starters.
That interview with Messi is genuinely extraordinary.
— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) September 4, 2020
“I would never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, that gave me everything since I arrived, it is the club of my life, I have made my life here,” Messi said.
Messi, in the interview at his home in Castelldefels in the outskirts of Barcelona with Goal’s Ruben Uria, also spoke about his family’s heartbreak and tears at being told they would be leaving their home in Barcelona.
Can’t go to war against club of my life: Lionel Messi explains his decision to stay at Barcelona
You can watch the full interview here:
