New deal will keep Lionel Messi at Barca until 2018

LIONEL Messi’s soaring career at Barcelona is set to continue for at least another five years.

Messi agreed to extend his contract with the club by two years to 2018.

The Argentine forward began his career at Newell’s Old Boys, where he played for five years until 2000, when he made the journey to Spain to join Barcelona’s youth team, aged 13. He played for the first time in the senior squad at 16, in a friendly against Porto.

Team-mates and World Cup winners Xavi Hernandez and Carles Puyol also agreed to new deals with the Catalan club.

“This news means that FC Barcelona has secured its ties with three of its most important players,” the club said in a statement, adding the contracts would be signed “over the course of the next few weeks.”

Club spokesman Toni Freixa said, “It was a very important matter for us all, but there was no problem when we came to negotiate and agree.”

Messi is the hot favourite to collect an unprecedented fourth successive World Player of the Year award. He has 90 goals in 2012, having surpassed Gerd Muller’s 40-year-old milestone of 85 in a calendar year, and there is still one game to go this month to improve on his astonishing tally. His contract with Barcelona wasn’t due to expire until 30 June, 2016, but he has agreed to stretch his commitment to the club to 30 June, 2018. Puyol and Xavi will extend theirs to June 2016.

Relying on Messi’s uncanny ability to puncture defences, Barcelona remained in contention for three trophies; the Spanish league, Champions League and Copa del Rey. On Sunday, his 22nd double of 2012, and sixth in six games, helped to beat Atletico Madrid 4-1, Barcelona’s closest rival in the Spanish league.

Barcelona have attained a league record start of 15 victories in 16 rounds, and lead by nine points.

Puyol, the 34-year-old captain, had said he wanted to continue his professional career until he is 40, although he said he didn’t want to “have to drag myself on to the field.” Central midfielder Xavi, 32, who has spent all of his professional career at Barcelona, joined the youth club in 1991 when he was 11.