A press report stated that Argentine star Lionel Messi believes that defender Gerard Pique played a role in his exit from Barcelona last summer.
El Pais newspaper said that Pique met with club president Joan Laporta and convinced him of the necessity of giving up Messi's services and not renewing his contract with the team.
Pique believed that Messi's departure is the best solution to the financial problems in which the team is floundering, and that the Argentine star's departure will give the Catalan club the ability to comply with the rules of financial fair play, established by the Spanish Football Federation to ensure a balance between teams' revenues and expenses.
According to the Spanish newspaper, Messi felt betrayed by the source of the dressing room, after Laporta informed Messi's father that the team would not renew his son's contract at a meeting in early August.
The report of the Spanish newspaper reinforces the information circulated previously, which confirms the cooling of the relationship between Messi and Pique in the past months, especially after the Spanish defender agreed to reduce his salary in order to give an opportunity to register the players who contracted with the Catalan club last summer.
Messi believes that Pique gave him a "stab in the back" when he did not reduce his salary earlier, a step that might have helped enhance the chances of the Argentine star continuing with Barcelona.
Messi moved to Paris Saint-Germain after a long period with Barcelona, in which he won all possible titles, and began a new experience in the French capital within a battalion led by Argentine coach Mauricio Pochettino.