BARCELONA: Lionel Messi’s father Jorge has sought to play down comments his son made this week which suggested the four-time World Player of the Year could consider leaving Barcelona.
Lionel (pictured) said in an interview published in Ole newspaper on Tuesday if it was up to him he would stay at the club he joined as a 13-year-old for his entire career.
However, he added that “sometimes not everything happens in the way you would like” and said the situation was “complicated”.
“The thought is to stay here (in Barcelona),” Jorge was quoted as saying by Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia yesterday. “But as people read between the lines there is exaggeration,” he added.
“It’s clear that if tomorrow the club says to you ‘we have this offer, we want to sell you’, it would have to be studied. Although right now it is not even on the agenda.”
Lionel has not been at his scintillating best over the past 18 months and, along with his father, has also had problems with the Spanish tax authorities.
Now 27, Messi probably has at least five years left at the top of the game and if the right offer was made, likely to be a world record fee, it is not inconceivable Barca could cash in or he could himself decide to leave. REUTERS
