"You are lying, yet again" - Lionel Messi calls out journalist following report of conversation with Barcelona president Joan Laporta

Lionel Messi has hit out at Gerard Romero following the Spanish journalist's report saying that the Argentine icon had a conversation with Barcelona president Joan Laporta.

Messi took to Instagram to quickly deny reports that he spoke to Laporta where they discussed the possible date to hold his tribute match.

Unhappy with the claims, the Inter Miami star posted a screenshot of the tweet on his Instagram stories and captioned it:

"You are lying, yet again."

Romero was quick to respond and apologized for the error. He posted on X:

"A thousand apologies to all, and a thousand more. I have been fooled again with something related to Leo. I'm not learning. I'm sorry. Very f***ed up. I accept everything you tell me today and I promise that we will work to ensure that it does not happen again."

Reports suggest Barcelona are keen on holding a tribute match for Lionel Messi as the Argentine never got to say goodbye to the fans.

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Barcelona president comments on Lionel Messi joining Inter Miami

In an interview with Mundo Deportivo, Barcelona president Joan Laporta said that Lionel Messi had agreed terms to rejoin the club. However, he was not ready to wait for the club to sort out their finances and decided to join Inter Miami.

Laporta said:

"There were possibilities, we had agreed that it would be like that. The player wanted to, the father too, but the rhythms are different. We didn't want what happened the other time to happen to us and we told them that when we had fair-play we would let them know."

He added:

"Then a while passed, the entire contract was agreed but Jorge wanted to come talk to me and told us that he had decided on Inter Miami because he had spent some very hard seasons in Paris, where he was under great pressure, that in Miami he would be calmer and I could think about the national team and despite having wanted to come to Barça, I didn't want to spend another year like that."

Barcelona were fighting Al Hilal for the signature of Lionel Messi in the summer when he decided to leave PSG. However, he opted to reject both clubs and joined Inter Miami, where he has already become the club captain.

Reports in SPORT suggested that both clubs were again interested in taking him on loan at the end of the MLS season. However, the Argentine has confirmed that he plans to spend the winter in Argentina and return to training in January.