Former Manchester City assistant coach details incident that led to club making an offer to sign Lionel Messi from Barcelona in 2008
Former Manchester City assistant coach Mark Bowen has revealed that the club offered Barcelona £35m for Lionel Messi in 2008. The Citizens had just completed their Abu Dhabi takeover and were trying to sign top players from across Europe.
The English club were far from the superpower they are now. For context, Manchester City finished 14th in the Premier League in the 2006-07 campaign and ninth the following season.
Speaking recently, as cited by Manchester City News, Bowen revealed that the Cityzens were reprimanded by the Catalans for trying to sign their prized asset.
“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," said Bowen.
He continued:
“We get to the bottom of it, true story. So they were kicking off going, what actually happened was all the people in this office and somebody had turned around, probably Gary Cook and said this is getting messy."
He concluded:
“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.”
Manchester City eventually got their act together and won the Premier League in the 2011-12 season.
How many goals has Lionel Messi scored for Barcelona against Manchester City?
Messi faced Manchester City six times as a Barcelona player, all in the Champions League. La Pulga won five and lost just once against the English side, scoring six goals and setting up three more.
The eight-time Ballon d'Or winner was briefly linked with City in the summer of 2021, once his contract with the Catalans expired. With Pep Guardiola in charge of the Premier League champions, speculation was ripe regarding a reunion at the Etihad.
However, the Argentinean opted to move to Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) instead. The 2022 FIFA World Cup winner faced City twice during his time with the Parisians, in the 2021-22 campaign. He scored in a 2-0 win at the Parc des Princes in the Champions League, but lost 2-1 at the Etihad.