Lionel Messi's transfer request was a 'power play' claims expert
Barcelona legend Lionel Messi has returned to training after a failed bid to leave the Nou Camp. Messi handed in a transfer request on August 25 following a turbulent campaign that saw Barca missing out on all major honours and crashing out of the Champions League quarter-finals in an 8-2 thumping by Bayern Munich.
The six-time Ballon d'Or winner referred to a term in his contract that would allow him to leave as a free agent at the end of the season but Blaugrana officials insisted that clause is no longer valid; that statement was later backed by La Liga.
And so the star forward decided to stay put in Catalonia because he didn't want to drag his beloved club to court.
The Argentina international is going to spend this coming season at Barcelona and came back to training for the first time since new manager Ronald Koeman took over.
However, the situation remains pretty unclear as the 33-year-old's contract runs out next year and his relationship with club president Josep Maria Bartomeu appears to have been affected by the recent turn of events.
Barcelona star Lionel Messi returned to training (Image: GETTY)
Messi previously said: "I told the club, especially the president, that I wanted to go.
"I've been telling him all year. He believed it was time to step aside.
"I believed that the club needed more young people, new people and I thought my time in Barcelona was over, feeling it a lot because I always said that I wanted to finish my career here.
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Lionel Messi came close to leaving Barcelona (Image: GETTY)
"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 goals, new airs.
"It did not come because of the Champions League result against Bayern, the decision I had been thinking about for a long time.
"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 end up keeping his word."
La Liga president Javier Tebas claimed he was "never seriously worried" Messi would leave Barcelona in the summer.