FC Barcelona legend Gerard Pique has used social media to announce he will return to football.

"It's a new year and after thinking carefully I have decided to return to football," Pique wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "I miss it a lot."

"This time it won't be as a player. It will be as a coach. I'll share more details at the end of the week," he added.

Pique retired as a Barca icon in November 2022 after falling out of favor with former teammate and now head coach Xavi Hernandez in a season that ended with the Blaugrana winning a first La Liga title in four years.

"It is the moment to end this stage of my life. I always said that after Barcelona there will be no other club, and that is the way it is going to be," he said at the time, also on social media.

"I will become a regular fan." Pique vowed. "I will support the team. I will pass my love for Barca to my children, like my family did with me. And you know me, sooner or later, I will be back."

Pique seems to have kept his word, though it is unclear at present whether he will specifically return to the club of his life where he came through the famed La Masia academy with Lionel Messi and Cesc Fabregas.

The 36-year-old has been keeping himself busy with seven-a-side competition The Kings League, which he launched in December 2022 ahead of the female Queens League.

With the help of football personalities including fellow ex-professionals, plus popular streamers, Pique has overseen the Kings League's rise to mass popularity across Spain and beyond.

Its Final Four event was held at Barca's old Spotify Camp Nou stadium in March 2023, before the ground was demolished as we know it in order to be renovated.

If not taking a coaching role at Barca, with La Masia a good place to start out, Pique could begin his journey in the dug out at FC Andorra which he bought in December 2018 through his Kosmos Holding firm.