Former coach reveals how Man City accidentally made £35m bid for Lionel Messi

The Argentine has cemented himself as one of the greatest footballers in history

Since the takeover in 2008, Manchester City have been involved in a number of significant transfer transactions.

For a then-record British transfer fee of £32.5 million, City defeated Chelsea to acquire Robinho from Real Madrid, one of their first major acquisitions.

Since then, the Manchester team has experienced tremendous success both at home and away, winning numerous trophies to display in their cabinet at the Etihad Stadium. In particular, the Cityzens have won one Champions League, three FA Cups, six League Cups, and eight Premier League crowns.

A veteran City assistant boss has provided some insight into another LaLiga talent that the Manchester club unintentionally wanted to acquire during the 2008 summer transfer window, 16 years after the takeover and their raid for Robinho.

How Man City “accidentally” made a £35 million offer for Lionel Messi in 2008?

Mark Bowen, a former assistant coach at Manchester City, describes how the team “accidentally” made a £35 million bid for Lionel Messi.

Bowen, who served as Mark Hughes’ assistant manager at City from July 2008 to December 2009, recently appeared in a film posted on the Business of Sport YouTube channel. In it, he related anecdotally how the Manchester club made an offer to capture Lionel Messi after their takeover.

He said: “So Gary Cook had said to Mark, right, the owners, they want to make a statement. They have to make a statement straight away, you know.

All of a sudden they get this thing through from Barcelona, from the president of Barcelona, who basically goes online and in the media saying, who do Man City think they are, blah blah blah.

So what’s happened here? Well, apparently Man City have offered £35m for Lionel Messi. Now at the time, believe it or not, it wouldn’t have been a ridiculous thing to say because people were talking at the time about Ribery and Messi, which is the better of the two, whatever.

So somebody has literally sent an offer to Barcelona for Lionel Messi, we are interested in Lionel Messi. The president’s come back and gone, who do you think you are? You think you can buy Lionel Messi off us? No chance, please back away. And somebody in the office said we think this is messy. It’s true.”

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