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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Ben Hayward

Barcelona star Lionel Messi denies paying Ronaldinho bail money and dismisses Inter Milan transfer talk

How will Messi fare in the house that Maradona built? (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi has taken to Instagram to dismiss a report claiming he will sign for Inter Milan in the summer... and that he paid bail money to get former teammate Ronaldinho out of prison.

Messi has been linked with a move to Serie A over the past week, but the Argentine attacker rejected a story claiming he will join the Nerazzurri.

On an Instagram story, the six-time Ballon d'Or winner posted a copy of the report, which also suggested he may have paid Ronaldinho's bail after the Brazilian was released from a Paraguayan prison this week.

"Lie number one," Messi wrote on top of the image, from Argentine station TNT Sports, which said he will move to Inter along with Thiago Almeida.

Underneath that, where TNT had claimed that Ronaldinho's $1.6million bail had been paid from an account in Barcelona and wondered whether Messi was behind it, he wrote: "Lie number two."

Messi also included the hashtag #FAKENEWS and at the bottom, he wrote: "What they said in the same media about (him returning to) Newell's a few weeks ago was also false. Lucky nobody believes them..."

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