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Javier Zanetti confirms Inter Milan tried to sign Lionel Messi in 2021
The vice-president of the Serie A side explained that they couldn’t offer a lucrative deal when the World Cup winner left Barcelona.
It came to a surprise to many when FC Barcelona and Lionel Messi parted ways in the summer of 2021, and several teams made a push to sign Argentina’s World Cup-winning captain when that happened. One of the clubs was Inter Milan and their vice-president, Javier Zanetti, discussed what happened when the 35-year-old became a free agent.
Zanetti talked to Messi
Zanetti tried to use his relationship with Messi to lure him to Serie A, but at the same time they knew they couldn’t compete with the offer from Paris Saint-Germain. Inter’s vice-president talked to the forward, but at the end of the day they Nerazzurri didn’t have the money to bring him to Italy.
“We spoke to Messi because of the relationship we have when there was this possibility that he would leave Barcelona,” Zanetti told an interview with DAZN. “I would never have imagined his farewell to Barcelona. But we cannot realistically compete, from an economic point of view, with teams like [Manchester] City or Paris Saint Germain.”
Messi left the Camp Nou in tears and eventually signed a two-year deal with PSG, with the option for a further 12 months, and he has shown that he can still compete at the highest level. It took him a year to adapt to Ligue 1, but in his second season he has become the heart and soul of the team and they are aspiring to win their first Champions League.