Manchester City's 'accidental' £70m bid for Lionel Messi: How a boardroom misunderstanding almost brought the legendary Argentine to the Etihad Stadium

Fifteen years ago, Manchester City were so enamoured with the all-conquering Barcelona that they sought to replicate the same structure. They began by hiring chief executive Ferran Soriano and sporting director Txiki Begiristain, before eventually landing Pep Guardiola to manage the team. All that was missing was Lionel Messi – though they nearly signed the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner at the very start of the Abu Dhabi-led project by mistake!

Ever since Guardiola moved to City in 2016, speculation was rife that the coach wanted to prise Messi from Barcelona and bring him to the Etihad Stadium. Throughout his first season with City, the coach had to deny reports that he had tried to sign Messi, as well as Neymar and Sergio Busquets. 

The closest Messi came to being reunited with Guardiola at City was in the summer of 2020 when he informed Barcelona in a Burofax message that he wanted to leave and held a meeting with his former coach at his house, before eventually opting to stay in Catalunya.

Messi was subsequently offered to City in 2021 when he was forced to leave Barcelona due to the club's financial problems, although Paris Saint-Germain showed a greater interest in signing him. On none of these occasions, however, did the Manchester club actually lodge a bid for the Argentine. 

City only reached out to Barca about signing Messi on one occasion, all the way back in 2008, days after the club had been taken over by the Abu Dhabi United group and before the Argentine had won his first Ballon d'Or. The bid, however, caused great confusion both at Barcelona and back at City. That's because it was made in error, all stemming from a misunderstanding amid the excitement of City becoming billionaires overnight…

AFPNot fit for purpose

City had begun the 2008-09 season in gloomy fashion, losing 4-2 at Aston Villa. It was not entirely unexpected, given they had lost the final game of the previous season 8-1 at Middlesbrough. Their transfer business had been unremarkable, signing Brazilian forward Jo from CSKA Moscow and Tal Ben Haim from Chelsea, plus a little-known defensive midfielder from Hamburg by the name of Vincent Kompany for £6 million. But later in the month, it became clear that change was coming and that the club, and indeed English football, would never be the same.

With City owner Thaksin Shinawatra facing legal trouble back in Thailand and running out of cash due to his assets being frozen, the club were on the brink of financial collapse, leading to them having to ask for a loan from a former owner just to pay their players. Meanwhile, new coach Mark Hughes was shocked at the state of the club he had just landed at. 

He recalled to : "The training ground was not fit for purpose. I was quite shocked by how run down it was. I assumed that people and facilities would be top quality and it was patently obvious they weren't. I made the switch from Blackburn because I thought City was a club with potential, in a good financial position, and there would be money available. The reality wasn't exactly what was described and sold to me." 

AdvertisementAFPBillionaires overnight

But everything changed on September 1. Hughes was playing golf when he got a call from CEO Garry Cook informing him the club had been bought by the Abu Dhabi United group. He continued hitting balls, but soon he was being followed by a crew from . Suddenly City were a lot more than a club with potential. And oh boy would money be available now, and Cook informed Hughes that the new owners "wanted a marquee signing" as soon as possible. 

Hughes had the pick of the best players in the world; the problem was that it was also transfer deadline day. There was another issue, too: City were still seen as a bit of a joke of a club.

"They just asked me ‘Who do you want?’. They had a load of bids out for pretty much every top player in the world," Hughes told the podcast. "They had just put all of these bids out to see if anyone would actually come back, but people forget that at that time, Man City were a mid-table Premier League club – mid-table to bottom if we’re honest. There weren’t that many takers because players were thinking, 'Man City, who?'.

AFPFrom 'getting messy' to 'let's get Messi'

"They had all these bids out and nothing was happening, then all of a sudden they had a little nibble from Robinho and Real Madrid," Hughes added. "It was a crazy day, there were bids going out for Lionel Messi and all sorts! We finally managed to get Robinho over the line which was a hell of a statement, and the rest is history."

Robinho left Madrid on the assumption he was going to join Chelsea, and when he headed for Manchester, he assumed it was United, and not their nouveau-riche rivals who he was going to play for. He wasn't the only one who was confused. Although Shinawatra had just sold the club, his right-hand man Pairoj Piempongsant was still involved in City's transfer negotiations. 

He and Cook jumped on a conference call with the club's then-COO Paul Aldridge to discuss who to sign, as Cook explained to in 2019: "So picture the scene. There's Paul with his London accent: 'Pairoj, you got to tell me what we're doing, it's getting out of control'. Pairoj was lying on a chaise lounge, getting a massage, and shouting: 'Yes, yes, yes! Very messy, messy, it's getting messy.' Something got lost in translation and – on my daughter's eyesight, this is the truth – that was misheard as "We've got to get Messi'.".

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Getty Images Sport'Are you mad?'

"Paul came to me afterwards: 'Garry, this is getting confusing, I don't know what we are doing here.' I said: 'Put the offer in, let's see what we come up with'." According to Cook, City put in a £70m bid for Messi which would have smashed the previous world transfer record of £50m, the fee Madrid had paid for Zinedine Zidane in 2001. 

Messi was 21 at the time but was well on the way to stardom, having scored a hat-trick against Real Madrid two seasons previously and finished third in the latest Ballon d'Or voting, behind Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo. He had scored 10 goals and provided 14 assists during previous season, but given City's sudden change in fortunes, signing Messi was not as outlandish as it seems now. Indeed, Robinho had scored one goal more than the Argentine for Madrid in 2007-08.

Such was City's low standing in the global game, Barcelona did a double take when they learned of the bid. Cook added: "Then Dave Richards called me the next day from the Premier League: "Garry, have you put in an offer for Lionel Messi? Seventy million pounds? Are you mad?"'