A tearful Lionel Messi left Barcelona in 2021. It was quite clear that the best player in the history of the world would end his career at Camp Nou. An unsuccessful spell at PSG followed, and the Argentine rediscovered the joy of playing well outside the UEFA zone at David Beckham’s Inter Miami. At Barcelona, a potential Messi return is used when it comes to electing a new president. Joan Laporta promised Messi’s comeback in a Barca shirt, won the presidential election, but has still not fulfilled the promise. Now, club icon Xavi says in a sensational interview that Messi wanted to get back on Laporta’s watch.
This was when Xavi was still coach of Barcelona, he was in contact with his former teammate and claims a return was feasible. The club president, on the other hand, has previously stated that it was impossible to bring Messi back in 2023 for financial reasons.
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“Here the president is not telling the truth either,” Xavi begins in an interview with La Vanguardia.
-Leo already agreed. In January 2023, after the World Cup triumph, we spoke, and he told me that he was interested in coming back, which I could see for myself. We were in dialogue until March, and I said to him: ‘Okay, when you give me the green light, I’ll tell the president, because I see it as a good match,'” Xavi continues.
“The president started negotiations on a contract with Leo’s father, and we had the green light from La Liga, but then the president withdrew the whole thing. Laporta told me right away that if Leo came back, he would fight with him, and he couldn’t,” he added. And suddenly Leo stopped answering my calls, because he was told that it couldn’t be done,” Xavi continues.
In other words, La Liga had approved the financial part.
“Then I called his father and said: ‘That can’t be right, Jorge’. He replied, “Talk to the president.” I insisted that we had been talking to Leo for five months. The transfer was in place, and there was no doubt from a football perspective, and financially we were going to Montjuïc (Barca’s temporary stadium). We would have “The Last Dance” like Michael Jordan. Everything was in place,” Xavi continues.
Who now doubts that Messi will return to Barcelona.
“I don’t think it will ever happen. I have completed my time as a player and coach there. Now my only interest is to tell the truth, and Leo is not coming to Barca because the president does not want him – not because of La Liga, or because Jorge Messi is demanding more money. It is the president and his people who say no,” Xavi concludes.
