The fans of sports were stunned all over the world when Barcelona star Lionel Messi revealed that he wants to leave the club.
The Argentine international has been the face of the Barcelona for over two decades and he has achieved high success on different occasions.
It was reported last month that Lionel Messi reportedly sent a burofax to Barcelona insisted that he wanted to activate that clause in his contract which allows him leave "as a free agent at the end of the season."
Although, the club confirmed that the part of that contract had "expired in June 10."
Barcelona and Lionel Messi had taken the front page of sports media over the transfer saga.
However, he has come out to reveal all that went down between him and the club. He stated that club's President Josep Bartomeu "didn't keep his word."
Messi added that he had told the president that he wanted to seek for a new challenge at the beginning of the year.
Speaking in an exclusive interview w9th Goal, he said: "I told the club, including the president, that I wanted to go. I've been telling him that all year. I believed it was time to step aside.
“I believed that the club needed more young players, new players and I thought my time in Barcelona was over. I felt very sorry because I always said that I wanted to finish my career here.
“It was a very difficult year, I suffered a lot in training, in games and in the dressing room. Everything became very difficult for me and there came a time when I considered looking for new ambitions."
Lionel Messi has picked up the Ballon d'Or award six times. He has also win several La Liga titles, Copa Del Rey cups as well as Champions League trophies.
He also cleared that the 8-2 humiliation to Bayern Munich in the Champions League didn't trigger the move to seek his exit from the club.
Messi said: “It did not come because of the Champions League result against Bayern, no – I had been thinking about the decision for a long time."
On Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu on keeping to his word, Messi said: “I told the president and, well, the president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I wanted to go or if I wanted to stay and in the end he did not keep his word.”
“Throughout the year I had been telling the president that I wanted to leave, that the time had come to seek new goals and new directions in my career,” explained Messi. “He told me all the time: ‘We'll talk, not now, this and that’, but nothing. The president did not give me a clue at what he was really saying.
“Sending the burofax was making it official that I wanted to go and that I was free and the optional year – I was not going to use it and I wanted to go.
“It was not to make a mess, or to go against the club, but the way to make it official because my decision had been made.”
He added: “If I don't send the burofax, it's like nothing happens, I have the optional year I had to have continued all year.
“What they say is that I did not say it before June 10 – but I repeat, we were in the middle of all the competitions and it was not the moment.
"But apart from that, the president always told me 'when the season is over, you decide if you stay or leave', he never set a date, and well, it was simply to make it official that I wouldn't continue, but not to start a fight because I didn't want to fight against the club."
However, he had grown increasingly frustrated with what he felt was a lack of direction from Bartomeu and the club stewardship, suggesting that that there has been no coherent approach from those in charge.
“Of course I had a hard time deciding. It does not come from the Bayern result, it comes from many things,” he stressed. “I always said I wanted to end here and I always said I wanted to stay here. That I wanted a winning project and to win titles with the club, to continue expanding the legend of Barcelona.
“And the truth is that there has been no project or anything for a long time, they juggle and cover holes as things go by. As I said before, I always thought about the welfare of my family and the club."
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