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

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 Guardian: "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." 

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 Sky News. 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 No Tippy Tappy Football 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?'.

"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 toThe Athletic 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'.".

"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?"'

Mark Bowen, Hughes' assistant manager at the time, has also spoken about the bid in the ensuing years. His version differs from Cook's story, claiming that the bid for Messi was the same as the one for Robinho, in the region of £30-£35m. In fact, Cook had also cited the £30m figure when he first told the story to author Gary James. 

That might explain why Barcelona's then-president Joan Laporta was not best pleased when he saw the bid, which was derisory for a player everyone knew was going to be the best player in the world.

Bowen told the Business of Sport podcast last year: "The president has come back and gone, 'Who the f*ck do you think you are? You think you can buy Messi off us? No chance, please back away'."

Laporta evidently didn't take City seriously and the accidental bid just goes to show how amateur the club's operation was at the time, one day after hitting the jackpot. The club continued to show enormous, if a little misplaced, ambition in the transfer market, and in the subsequent January window, they tried to sign Kaka, offering AC Milan £91m and the Brazilian a salary of £500,000 per week. 

Kaka turned down the offer and instead City fans - one of whom ill-advisedly got a tattoo of Kaka's name on his chest - had to settle for new signings such as Craig Bellamy and Nigel de Jong. Cook left the club in disgrace two years later, resigning after sending an email mocking the mother and agent of City player Nedum Onuoha, who was suffering from cancer.

Cook was eventually replaced by Soriano, whose former Barcelona colleague Begiristain soon followed. Four years later, so did Guardiola and thus ended City's reputation as a club no one would take seriously. When Messi did leave Barca, ironically after Laporta's false claims that the cash-strapped Catalans could afford to extend his contract, City was the only club along with PSG who could realistically afford him. 

City showed no great desire to get Messi that time though, having already signed Jack Grealish for £100m while they were turning their attention to football's next superstar, Erling Haaland. Deadline-day deals such as Gianluigi Donnarumma's arrival in September are now rare occurrences for a club that plans major signings well in advance. Sending a mistaken bid, ordered while a transfer negotiator enjoys a massage, is truly unthinkable now.