Lionel Messi shows his grievances at being the focal point of problems at Barcelona

Lionel Messi, after being accused by Antoine Griezmann’s former agent of making life difficult for the French striker at the La Liga club, has admitted he is tired of being blamed for problems at Barcelona.

Eric Olhats claims Messi has too much control at the club adding that his “reign of terror” has not made life easy for Griezmann since his arrival last year.

On Wednesday, while Messi was returning to Barcelona from international duty with Argentina, he was met by reporters at the airport and he was quoted by the Spanish media as saying: “The truth is that I’m a little tired of always being the problem for everything at the club,”

“On top of that, after a 15-hour flight, I had the tax authorities waiting for me. It’s madness.”

Messi tried to leave Barcelona during the summer with the Argentine wanting to activate a disputed clause that allows him to leave Barcelona for free in the off-season.

However, the club and the Spanish La Liga said the clause was already inactive by that time and he eventually decided to stay as he did not want to face a legal battle with the club.

Since the La Liga outfit’s 8-2 humiliation at the hands of Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals last season, Barcelona have been in turmoil with the Club president Josep Maria Bartomeu also tending his resignation last month ahead of a vote of no confidence.

Messi and the Spanish tax authorities have also had their run-ins in recent years.

A 21-month prison sentence was handed to him in 2016 and was ordered to pay a fine of 2m euros (£1.8m) for defrauding the Spanish government of 4.2m euros over income earned from image rights.

Lionel Messi, however, did not serve any jail time.

He offered a sum of 250,000 euros as a fine in exchange for staying out of jail. In Spain, defendants without a previous conviction are permitted to serve any sentence of under two years on probation.