The ‘break in contact with fans’ at PSG following his departure for Inter Miami has been addressed by Lionel Messi in an open letter.

Messi spent two seasons at Parc des Princes after leaving his childhood club Barcelona in 2021, scoring 32 goals and winning two Ligue 1 championships. But he was unable to assist the squad in winning the Champions League.

In his farewell PSG game earlier this month against Clermont, the 36-year-old received jeers from his own fans.

Messi has finally given some thought to his two-year decision to join the French powerhouses.

In an interview with beIN Sports, he said: ‘I came to Paris because I liked the club, because I had friends and a lot of people I knew in the dressing room, teammates from the national team or some I had been with before.’

‘It seemed to me that, beyond what the club was, I was going to have a much easier adaptation than in other teams I could have gone to, so that’s a little bit why I decided to go to the club.’

After a tearful goodbye in Barcelona, the forward found his new surroundings trickier than he had anticipated, as he explained: ‘The truth is that it was a very difficult adaptation, much more than I expected.

‘Apart from the fact that I had people I knew in the dressing room and I had relations with them, it was complicated to adapt to a new change. I arrived late, I didn’t have a pre-season. I had to adapt to a new city, which was difficult for my family and for me.’

‘People started to treat me differently,’ Messi continued. ‘Part of the PSG crowd, the rest and the majority still treated me as they did at the beginning, but there was a break with the PSG fans.

‘It wasn’t my intention, far from it, to generate that break. It also happened with Neymar or [Kylian] Mbappe before.’

Messi will now join Miami, who find themselves in need of his talent after slipping to the bottom of the MLS’ Eastern Conference.They have won just five of their opening 17 games, and sacked manager Phil Neville earlier this month.