Messi confirms staying at Barcelona but rages at president

But he launched a stinging attack on Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu, whom he accused of going back on an agreement to let him leave for free at the end of last season. 

"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 didn't end up keeping his word," Messi said in an interview with Goal, released on Friday.

"I thought and we were sure that I was free. The president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I stayed or not and now they hold on to the fact that I did not say it before June 10 when it turns out that on June 10 we were competing for the league in the middle of this shitty virus and this disease that altered all the dates.

Messi added: "And this is the reason why I am going to continue in the club... because the president told me that the only way to leave was to pay the 700-million-euro release clause. 

"This is impossible, and then the other way was to go to trial. I would never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, that gave me everything since I arrived, it is the club of my life, I have made my life here."

Messi had said he wanted to leave the club he joined as a boy after Barcelona's humiliating 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals in August.