A day after denying rumors he was considering leaving Barcelona, lionel Messi cast new doubts about his future at the club on Monday. Messi said at the awards ceremony for the FIFA BAllon d'Or that he doesn't know whether he'll be back at Barcelona next season. He made the comment after being asked whether he'd consider returning to his boyhood club Newell's Old Boys at some point.
Messi said in Spanish that “I am not sure if I will go back to Newell's Old Boys one day,” adding that “I am not sure where I will be next year. I have always said I want to end my career at Barcelona but as Cristiano (Ronaldo) said: ‘Only God knows the future.’ Especially in football where things can change overnight.”
On Sunday, Messi told Barcelona's in-house TV channel that he had no intention of leaving. But his latest comments are sure to regenerate interest from a number of cash-rich English Premier league clubs.
Manchester United are reportedly one of the few that could afford the buyout fee from his contract, reportedly set at 250 million euros ($296 million), without falling foul of UEFA's financial fair play rules.
His Barcelona teammate Sergio Busquets on Monday tried to refute rumours by telling club’s official website: “He controls his future and he has said he has no intention of leaving — and that's very important for us. “All he was saying yesterday was the typical cliche that you never know what might happen in the future.”