Messi not interested in coaching, prefers sporting director role

Lionel Messi has no plans to become a coach when he retires from playing, saying he is more interested in being a director of football than working in the unforgiving world of football management.

The 33-year-old Argentine forward has about six months left on his contract with Barcelona and the football world is on tenterhooks over whether he will stay at the club where he has spent the last 20 years or look for a new challenge.

“I don’t see myself as a coach, perhaps a sporting director to hire players I want or that the club that I’m at needs,” Messi said in an interview with Spanish network La Sexta on Sunday.

Messi, six-times world player of the year, will wait until the end of the season before making his mind up but said he would like to return to Barca, regardless of what he does next.

via Reuters