Barcelona have ‘zero contact’ with Lionel Messi as return from PSG unlikely

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has ruled out Lionel Messi’s imminent return and confessed he has zero contact with the club legend.

The Argentinian has been linked to a reversal of the move he made to Paris Saint-Germain last August following his failure to make his mark at his new club and admission he has struggled to adapt to life in the French capital.

Laporta insisted earlier this month he has no regrets over his decision to allow the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner to call time on his Barcelona career, saying he had to put the institution ahead of its best-ever player because of the club’s financial situation.

And he put more space between the La Liga team and the 34-year-old dad-of-three late on Monday by revealing he had no current plans to try to resign Messi.

Laporta told Catalan radio station RAC1: “It’s not something we considering at the moment. We’re building a new team, with young players.”

Referring to the footballer by his shortened name of Leo, as he is generally known in Spain and South America, he added: “I don’t talk with him. I don’t have the close communication we had before he left.

“There’s no personal contact. I remember him with his affection and I hope he feels the same. For me it wasn’t easy and I’d have liked things to be different but with the way things happened, I felt the the institution had to come first and I think we did what we had to do.”

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Admitting he was also under the impression Messi was having a hard time of it in Paris, Laporta told the radio station: “I hear comments from people who are close. Barcelona is a great place and when you leave you miss the city and the club. Leo lived very well here.”

Earlier this month the Nou Camp president, who said when he took over from Josep Maria Bartomeu that the wage bill was 103 per cent of the club’s revenue, described his choice to let his star player leave as “the saddest of them all."

He told Barca TV: “It was painful. If I take stock, it is the saddest decision of all and I would never have wanted to make it.

"But I am not sorry either because I wanted to put the institution ahead of everything, even ahead of coaches and the best player in history. And we had to do it because the situation we inherited is what it was.”

Messi admitted weeks after signing for his new club he “missed everything” about the Catalan capital where he spent more than two decades. He also confirmed in an interview with Catalan daily sport published at the start of last November that he would move back to Barcelona with his family once his spell at PSG ends.

Messi and his wife Antonela Roccuzzo still own the luxury home on the exclusive Bellamar residential estate in Castelldefels south of Barcelona. They bought the mansion for £3.5million in 2009 and have spent more than £5million on renovations.

The soccer great hinted late last week he could retire from international football after this year’s World Cup. He and teammate Neymar were booed by PSG fans during their league match against Bordeaux on March 13 following the French side's unexpected Champions League exit against Real Madrid.

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