Koeman Ensure That Messi Will Remail At Barcelona Next Season

 

Barcelona manager Ronald Koeman is not certain Lionel Messi will be at the club next season.

Messi was determined to leave Camp Nou this summer, but Barca were not prepared to allow him to depart on a free and instead insisted that any interested club had to pay the £630m release clause in his contract.
The Argentine decided to stay at the club, but his contract will officially expire next summer.

Koeman stated that he is unsure if the 33-year-old will be a Barcelona player next season

“I was always hoping Messi would stay for this season. If he had left in the summer, I would have had a very different situation at Barca,” The Mirror quotes Koeman as saying.
“He wanted to leave but the club was very clear to him. The buy out clause was so high, that not a single club in the world was going to pay that in these times.
“I went to his house and took time to listen to all the things he said. But I also explained to him that I had not been a part of the problems he had with the club and told him how I was going to work to change things.
“We ended up talking football tactics. It ended as a proper football chat and that convinced me he is a real lover of the game and he still wanted to put everything he has into Barcelona.”
Messi played the full 90 minutes as Barca suffered a surprise 1-0 defeat to Getafe in La Liga on Saturday night.