Lionel Messi has revealed he changed his hair colour to move on from a summer in which he faced tax charges and retired from international duty with Argentina.
Messi, who has returned to Barcelona from South America and will miss Argentina's World Cup qualifier against Venezuela on Tuesday with a groin problem, explained in an interview with TyC Sports, as reported by El Mundo Deportivo, why such problems led him to dye his hair blonde.
A Barcelona court found Lionel Messi and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, guilty of three counts of tax fraud and has sentenced them to 21 months in prison -- although neither will serve any jail time.
"I introduced this change to start from zero," the 29-year-old said. "There had been a lot of issues that had taken place and I told myself I need to break away from this and start over."
He then quit international football after Argentina lost their third final in three years when beaten by Chile in the Copa America Centenario -- before reversing his decision last month and scoring the winner in Argentina's 1-0 World Cup qualifying victory against Uruguay.
"It was a huge disappointment," Messi said. "It's [the decision to quit] what I felt at the time. Everything fell on me. I felt that was the final [Argentina could finally win] considering how the group was and how we had arrived to those games."
Messi, meanwhile, has reaffirmed his desire to play for boyhood club Newell's Old Boys before retiring from football.