Former Barcelona Manager Reveals What Led to Messi Leaving PSG For Inter Miami | OneFootball

Lionel Messi has brought a Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup to Inter Miami CF, and now we know what led to him leaving Paris Saint-Germain for Major League Soccer.

In a recent interview with La Vanguardia (via GOAL), Xavi shared several insights from his tenure as FC Barcelona manager, before being sacked in May 2024. One revelation Xavi revealed was that Messi’s return to Barcelona following his contract expiring at PSG was all but finalized in early 2023.

According to Xavi, Messi wanted to return to the Catalan club where he played the majority of his career. Messi was coming off the FIFA World Cup victory with Argentina, and the return to Barcelona was pitched as a “last dance,” an ode to Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls in 1997-98.

Unfortunately for Messi, the deal never materialized, and following the expiration of his contract at PSG, the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner departed for Inter Miami. The reason? Barcelona president, Joan Laporta.

“The President isn’t telling the truth either, Xavi said. “Leo was signed. In January 2023, after the World Cup, we got in touch, and he told me he was excited about coming back, and I saw it. We talked until March, and I told him, ‘Okay, when you give me the OK, I’ll tell the president because I see it as a good move from a footballing perspective.’ Then what happened? The president started negotiating the contract with Leo’s father, and we had La Liga’s approval, but it was the president who threw everything out. Did he explain why? Laporta told me, and I quote, that if Leo came back, he was going to wage war against him and that he couldn’t allow it. And then suddenly Leo stopped answering my calls because he’d been told on the other end that it couldn’t be done. And when I called his father, I said, ‘This can’t be, Jorge,’ and he said, ‘Talk to the president.’ And I insisted that we’d been talking with Leo for five months, it was a done deal, there were no doubts about his footballing ability, and financially we were going to Montjuïc and we were going to do it.”

These comments from Xavi are interesting from a PSG perspective because, toward the end of 2022 and early 2023, there were reports that PSG had offered an extension to Messi to keep him in the French capital.

While at PSG, Messi won Ligue 1 twice, but was unable to deliver a UEFA Champions League title. That didn’t come until the 2024-25 season.