Lionel Messi Announces Move To Inter Miami
Lionel Messi has announced that he will join Inter Miami in the MLS through simultaneously published interviews with SPORT and Mundo Deportivo.
Messi held court with reporters from the Catalan daily newspapers in Paris on Wednesday, telling them: “I made the decision that I am going to go to Miami.”
“I still don’t have it 100% closed or something is missing. But well, we decided to continue the path there,” he added.
Messi explained that he “really wanted” a second stint at boyhood club FC Barcelona, and was “very excited to be able to return” to Camp Nou.
But after “having experienced what I experienced and the exit I had” in 2021, Messi “did not want to be in the same situation again: waiting to see what was going to happen and leaving my future in the hands of others”.
Messi’s Paris Saint-Germain contract expires on June 30, with both the Ligue 1 giants and the player revealing last weekend that he would depart following two seasons in the French capital.
Rather than allow a transfer saga to drag on over the summer, Messi has resolved his future swiftly after PSG’s Ligue 1-winning season concluded with a 3-2 defeat to Clermont Foot on Saturday.
On Monday, former club Barca appeared close to signing their greatest ever player after their financial viability plan got the green light from La Liga, and Messi’s father and agent Jorge Messi was filmed meeting the Catalans’ president Joan Laporta.
Regarding this, Messi remarked: “Although I heard that it was said that the league had accepted everything and that everything was fine for me to return… there were still many other things missing.”
“I heard that they had to sell players or lower player salaries [to make the deal happen], and the truth is that I didn’t want to go through that nor take charge of obtaining something that had anything do with all that,” he stressed, in news that might come as a comfort to some of his former Barca teammates.
The world first learned that Messi had chosen Miami when Argentine journalist Hernan Castillo reported the news on Tuesday evening, and this was then confirmed by numerous reporters and outlets on Wednesday afternoon.
Transfer market expert Fabrizio Romano tweeted that an announcement from Messi was expected in the coming hours, and this has proven to be true.
Messi turned down a huge offer from Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia to make his move across the Atlantic a reality.
Romano and GOAL reported that Messi had been offered €500 million ($534 million) a year to star in the Saudi Pro League.
Once it seemed that Messi would head to Florida, Al-Hilal then upped the ante and offered Messi €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) according to COPE‘s Helena Condis.
“If it had been a matter of money, I’d have gone to Arabia or elsewhere. It seemed like a lot of money to me,” Messi pointed out.
“The truth is that my final decision goes elsewhere, and not because of money.”
Messi joins Inter Miami with the team struggling at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and he could theoretically make his debut at his new home – the DRV PNK Stadium – as soon on July 2 against Austin FC.
