Lionel Messi: I have no intention of leaving Barcelona for the Premier League

Lionel Messi celebrated the win that moved Barcelona to within one point of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga by saying he would not leave the club for the Premier League.

Messi said after the 3-1 win over Atletico Madrid: ‘I have not laid down any conditions for me to stay at this club and neither do I have any intention of leaving. I have heard stories about my father already having spoken to Chelsea and Manchester City but it is not true.’

Messi mysteriously started following Chelsea on Instagram last Monday – the day he failed to turn up for training complaining of a stomach bug. Sources close to the dressing room claimed coach Luis Enrique had been upset by Messi’s no-show to the point of wanting to fine him, and it was suggested Messi had demanded the coach be changed at the end of the season.

But after assisting the first two goals last night and scoring the third, Messi gave a rare interview for the club’s in-house television channel and said: ‘I hear so many things about me. It has been claimed in the past that I have had a bad relationship with [Pep] Guardiola, [Samuel] Eto’o, [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic, with Bojan [Krkic] and even that I had got rid of a lot of people. It is not true. And it is not good for people to look for rivalry between me and the coach.

‘I am painted as the one who runs the club but I am just a like any other player in the dressing room. I don’t take the decisions. And I don’t decide who takes the decisions.’

Messi will be in Zurich on Monday (today) for the Ballon d’Or ceremony where he is expected to lose out to Cristiano Ronaldo for the second consecutive season. He called for unity at Barcelona as they try to catch Carlo Ancelotti’s leaders.

He said: ‘We have six months left and we want to try to achieve some important things. That they throw the dirt at us from the outside is not going to stop us doing that.’