Lionel Messi admits he wanted to leave Barcelona in the summer.
After a month-long dispute with the club’s hierarchy, the Argentine settled on staying and seeing out his contract.
He feels like the club’s current position will be difficult to get out of both on and off the pitch.
“I want to fight for everything that’s ahead of us,” Messi said in an interview with La Sexta. “The club are going through a difficult time.
“Everything that surrounds the club is becoming difficult. The club are in a really bad situation, it’s really bad and it’s hard to get back to where we were.”
The unsettling air around Camp Nou has risen from Messi’s desire to leave. It was one that took everyone by surprise especially since he has been with the Blaugrana forever.
“I told the president I wanted to leave a lot of times,” Messi explained. “The burofax was a way of saying it officially, and to mean it. I thought that I had completed a cycle and needed a change. For my own head, I needed to get out of all of this.
“I knew it was a year of transition with young players. I wanted to fight for the Champions League and for LaLiga Santander. I wanted to leave and I wanted to do it the right way.
“The president started filtering things to make me look like a bad guy from a film. It was difficult to leave the club of my life, I don’t think there’s a better city than this and my family didn’t want to move.”
Luis Suarez’s departure from Camp Nou was another stone that knocked Messi’s faith in the club. The forward was forced out and allowed to join title rivals, Atletico Madrid for next to nothing.
“I had thought about it before Luis Suarez, but that was crazy,” the captain explained. “He went for free to a team that is fighting for the same things as us.”
Messi is free to discuss terms with new clubs from January 1st. However, he stated that he is not thinking about the next season right now.
“Nothing will be clear in my head until the end of the season,” Messi said. “I’ll wait until the season is over. I’m focusing on winning titles and not other things.”
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