Barcelona legend, Lionel Messi has revealed that he tried to return to the Spanish club after he left PSG, but circumstances made it impossible for that to happen.
Speaking during an interview with Simplemente Futbol, the Argentina captain said that the plan was for him to head back to Catalonia after he got tired of playing football in France, but the financial crisis Barcelona was facing at the time meant they would have needed to sell several players to fund his return, so he had to go somewhere else.
“I had the intention of returning to Barcelona and being able to go back to a place I always wanted to be, but it was not possible again,” he said.
According to him, after a Barcelona return became an impossible dream, his options became more limited as he had already decided against playing for another European team, therefore, a transfer to Inter Miami and MLS became his last resort. He added that the aim was to live football from a new perspective while enjoying life in America.
“After winning the World Cup and not being able to join Barcelona, it was time to go to MLS and live football from another perspective, enjoying more my daily life. Obviously, I’ll have the same responsibility on my job and desire to win everything and doing things right. But being more calm,” he added.
In 2023, reliable sources confirmed that Barcelona officials were more than desperate to get their Argentine maestro back, but like every club that chased Messi‘s signature at the time, a transfer was not that simple. The club’s financial complications were, infact, so bad that they could not even guarantee that Lionel would be registered as a player once he signs.
Since La Liga remains strict with its salary caps, if any of its clubs go over their allotted amount, which is mainly based on financial performance in recent seasons, they will be unable to register a player and therefore unable to use them in the league.
Therefore, the only way Barcelona would have been able to complete a deal for Messi is if he decided to wait for them to find a solution, and that was never happening since, in 2023, the club only told him at the last minute he would have to leave as they could not register him.
