Marco Verratti reveals why he stayed at PSG despite Barcelona offer

Marco Verratti has revealed why he decided to reject Barcelona to stay at Paris Saint-Germain, despite him cutting short a summer holiday to hold talks with the club’s sporting director.

The Italian was the subject of a potential €100m move to the Catalan giants last summer after PSG failed again in the Champions League and were forced to watch Monaco win Ligue 1.

That led to Verratti considering his future at the club before heavy reinforcement with the signings of Dani Alves, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar convinced him to believe in the Parisian project once again.

And despite it seeming like players come to PSG for the money, Verratti has insisted that he could have earned far more at Barcelona, as his new teammate Neymar could have at Manchester City and Chelsea.

“I’m honest, for the first time in five years I wondered if I should stay here,” he told L’Equipe.

“People think that I play for PSG for the money, but I could get that elsewhere, too. If I had moved in the summer, there were clubs ready to pay €100m to sign me and I would have earned a lot more.

“Neymar, he could have earned as much with Manchester City or Chelsea. He didn’t sign here for the money but the project. It’s the same with me.”

The 24-year-old also changed agents that summer which reinforced suggests he was set for a big move away after replacing Donato Di Campli with super-agent Mino Raiola.

“It was really complicated,” he said. “I didn’t expect a summer like that. A lot of things happened that I did not like, among them people from my side. They thought of themselves and not me. I never told PSG: ‘I want to leave.’ I wasn’t sure if we were a team with very big ambitions.

“When new sporting director Antero Henrique arrived, the first thing I did was shorten my holidays to speak to him. As soon as we had our first talk, I told him: ‘It’s good, I’ll stay here.’

“I didn’t stay because Neymar and Mbappe arrived – at that time I didn’t even know they were going to sign.”