Lionel Messi says he feared Neymar would end up signing for Barcelona's fierce rivals Real Madrid in the summer if a return to Camp Nou failed to materialise.

Neymar was keen on a move back to Barcelona from Paris Saint-Germain and the Catalan club tried a number of strategies to bring back the Brazilian, but a transfer ultimately proved impossible as the Blaugrana were only able to offer players plus cash and PSG rejected all their advances.

"I thought at one point in the market that if he didn't come here, he would go to Real Madrid," Messi said in an interview with RAC1.

"Because he really wanted to leave and he had made that known, and I thought Florentino [Perez] and Madrid were going to do something."

Messi claims Neymar soon regretted leaving Barcelona for PSG in 2017, when he shocked the Catalans with a €222 million move to the Parc des Princes as the Parisians paid his release clause.