Lionel Messi explains why he will never be close friends with rival Cristiano Ronaldo:

• Lionel Messi rejects the idea that he could be friends with Cristiano Ronaldo
• The Barcelona star says the two supposed rivals never spend any time together
• They only ever meet at awards ceremonies, where one of them usually wins 

Lionel Messi believes he and Cristiano Ronaldo will never share a close friendship because they do not get to spend enough time together to build the required bond.

The Barcelona and Real Madrid stalwarts have shared a formidable rivalry throughout their La Liga careers and have collected myriad individual honours between them.

But while Messi claims the alleged enmity is very much created by the media, he also admits the pair are unlikely to ever consider one another friends, if only because they rarely get the time to. He told Marca: 'I don't know if we will be. Friendship is built through spending time together and getting to know each other. 

'We have no relationship, mainly because we only see each other at awards ceremonies and that's the only time we speak. 

'Everything is fine, but our lives don't cross over very often.'