Manchester City have been involved in some big transfer deals since their Abu Dhabi takeover back in 2008.
One of their earliest big signings saw City beat Chelsea to the signing of Robinho from Real Madrid for a then British-record transfer fee of £32.5m (via BBC Sport).
Since then, the Manchester club have gone on to enjoy vast successes on the domestic and European stages, securing a multitude of trophies to put into their cabinet at the Etihad Stadium.
Specifically, the Blues have won eight Premier League titles, three FA Cups, six League Cups and one Champions League.
With 16 years having gone by since the takeover and their swoop for Robinho, a former City assistant manager has shed some light on another La Liga superstar the Manchester club made an inadvertent transfer move for during the 2008 summer window.
- Man City transfer rumours: Every player linked to and from the Etihad in summer transfer window
Former Man City assistant explains 2008 Lionel Messi offer
Appearing in a recent video shared on the Business of Sport YouTube channel, Mark Bowen, who was Mark Hughes’ assistant manager at City between July 2008 and December 2009, shared this anecdote about how the Manchester club made an offer to sign Lionel Messi following their Abu Dhabi 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.
“So we played in the Man City Academy’s Golf Day, and we were on the buggy going around, and almost every 10 minutes, Mark’s phone was going bing, bing, bing. And at one time we had £30m plus, circa £30m for [Dimitar] Berbatov, for Robinho, for Franck Ribery, because they were just checking out to these clubs in Europe, £35m, £30m, to see which one would bite, right?
“That’s what we’re doing. So Mark was saying, well, these are the ones we’ve got bids on already, and they’re going to get back to me when one of them bites. And as it turned out, it was Robinho.
“So Man City around this time had now started, they’d only had it for a year or so, they had an office in London. So while all this was going on, Gary Cook’s in London, he’s got different people on the board who were in there, and you’re all chasing around, ringing this, ringing that.
“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.
“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.
“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.”
City held talks with Messi in 2020
12 years after the Manchester club made their unintentional offer for the Argentine, Pep Guardiola held talks with Messi over a transfer to City, although nothing eventually came of it.
| Lionel Messi | Appearances | Goals | Assists | Trophies Won |
| Barcelona | 778 | 672 | 303 | 37 |
Taking into account how Messi proved himself to be one of the greatest players of all time during his extensive period at Barcelona, it’s easy to see why the Spanish club were so taken aback by City’s unintended offer for the Argentine back in 2008.
With Bowen now sharing the behind-the-scenes details on how this offer came about, it showcases how the Manchester club were not particularly accustomed to being efficient when it came to securing transfer deals with such significant financial backing that the Abu Dhabi takeover gave them.
