Mark Bowen, former Manchester City assistant coach, gave an interview to the YouTube channel Business of Sport and revealed the details behind the 39 million euro proposal made in 2008 by Lionel Messi, who at that time was considered one of the best players in the world.
With the transfer market coming to an end, the Citizens had 35 million euros to spend on a new player and sent offers of that value to several well-known players, such as Berbatov and Robinho. The offer sent to the Catalans was, however, motivated by a communication failure.
“There were a lot of people in the office and someone turned around, probably Gary Cook [City’s CEO at the time], and said ‘this is getting complicated’ [messy, in English]”, Bowen began explaining, who continued the story.
“So someone literally sent a proposal to Barcelona for Lionel Messi. The president [Joan Laporta] responded to us saying: ‘Who do you think you are? Do you think you can buy Lionel Messi from us? No way, please stay away if ‘”, recalled the director, reinforcing that a large part of the office thought that everything was just a mess, which was indeed confirmed.
In the end, it was Real Madrid who accepted the proposal in question for Robinho and the Brazilian striker signed, during the closed season, for City.
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