MADRID: Once again, Barcelona couldn’t do enough to entice Lionel Messi.
Nearly two years after the club was forced to let Messi go against his will because of its financial struggles, Barcelona again missed out on a chance to bring the World Cup winner back.
The 35-year-old Messi announced Wednesday he would not return to Spain and instead said he was going to join Inter Miami in Major League Soccer.
There had been hopes of a reunion between the Argentina great and the Spanish club where he thrived for nearly two decades before leaving to join Paris Saint-Germain, but in the end, there was only more disappointment for both sides.
Again, Barcelona’s finances kept the club from luring Messi back.
The Argentine apparently wanted to return but didn’t want to go through the ordeal of not knowing whether the Catalan club would be able to sign him. He said he was told the club would have to either sell other players or lower salaries, and he didn’t want that to happen.
“I really wanted to come back. I was very excited to be able to return,” Messi told Spanish media. “But after having experienced what I experienced and the exit I had, I did not want to be in the same situation again, waiting to see what was going to happen.”
Barcelona was mired in debt when Messi left in 2021. The club couldn’t make the numbers work back then as Messi was forced to wait in hopes of having his contract renewed. This time, Messi said he wasn’t going to wait on others.
“I wanted to make my own decision, thinking about me and my family,” Messi said.
It wasn’t all about the money for Messi, who chose Inter Miami despite reportedly having a much more lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia.
He said he wanted to “get out of the spotlight a bit” and focus more on his family after a “difficult time” with PSG, but made it clear that he would have returned to Barcelona if the numbers had worked.
The club deflected blame, saying that Messi decided to go to the United States because he preferred a less-demanding league so he could prioritize time with his family.
“President (Joan) Laporta understood and respected Messi’s decision to want to compete in a league with fewer demands, further away from the spotlight and the pressure he has been subject to in recent years,” the club said in a statement after Messi’s announcement.
But Laporta again couldn’t offer much to Messi even after restructuring the team’s finances.
