Breaking: Lionel Messi says he will stay at the ‘club of my life,’ Barcelona

Lionel Messi has walked back his demand for a move away from Barcelona after “brutal drama” ensued his announcement that he would leave the Camp Nou, he said in an interview published Friday.

“When I communicated my wish to leave to my wife and children, it was a brutal drama,” Messi told Goal.

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“The whole family began crying, my children did not want to leave Barcelona, nor did they want to change schools,” Messi said.

Arguably one of the greatest footballers to ever play the game, the Argentine Messi said he wanted to move to compete for a Champions League title and a desire to “compete at the highest level.”

“At least compete for it and let us not fall apart in Rome, Liverpool, Lisbon. All that led me to think about that decision that I wanted to carry out,” he said.

Messi, 33, is a six-time world player of the year.

Jorge Messi, the Barcelona star’s father and agent, recently traveled to Barcelona to hash out differences with the club over Barcelona’s claims that he was not free to leave.

“I thought and was sure that I was free to leave, the president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I stayed or not,” Lionel Messi said.

But Barcelona’s management says there is a buyout clause close to $850 million.

For his part, Messi said that he could have taken Barcelona to court but he would “never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, which gave me everything since I arrived. It is the club of my life, I have made my life here.”

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