Barcelona's Lionel Messi: 'I am not a tinpot dictator'

Lionel Messi has said that he is not a "tinpot dictator" and insists that Barcelona can achieve success without him.

The 25-year-old claims that he does not care what people say about his influence at Camp Nou.

"I am not a tinpot dictator," he told Dutch magazine ELF Voetbal. "I don't care what people say. My teammates know that I am not like that; they know full well what I am really like.

"Here at Barcelona, I have really learned to play in a team. In the Barcelona second team I learned a lot.

"At Barcelona they work quite differently to the rest of the world. I came from Argentina, where I did whatever I liked; mostly it was running and little more. Here I really learned to play in a team."

Messi has been shortlisted to win the FIFA Ballon d'Or for the fourth year in a row.