Manchester City 'accidentally' made an offer for Lionel Messi before the signing that shook football

Manchester City's accidental bid for Lionel Messi while he was at Barcelona has been revealed.

The funny story involves a lot of confusion between the former city ​​man Chief executive Garry Cook and a member of his staff in 2008.

And, mistake or not, it seems that Barcelona were not very happy with his attempt to lure the Argentine maestro from the Camp Nou in exchange for a low offer.

Speaking on Business of Sport, former Premier League player and manager Mark Bowen explained: “It was deadline day and Garry Cook had said to Mark (Hughes, former Manchester City manager): 'Well, the owners want make a statement.'

“There was a time when we had more than 30 million pounds for (Dimitar) Berbatov, robinhoFrank Ribéry, because they were simply wasting between £30 and £35 million, something that one could take advantage of. As it turned out, it was Robinho.

“While all this is happening, Garry Cook is in London and he has different people on the board running around.

“Suddenly, the president of Barcelona and Man City have apparently offered £35m for Lionel Messi.

“We got to the bottom of it and what really happened was someone turned around, probably Garry Cook, and said 'Jesus Christ, this is getting complicated'. He said 'messy' and someone literally sent an offer to Barcelona for Lionel Messi .

“The president came back and said: 'Who the hell do you think you are? Do you think you can buy Messi from us? There's no chance, please stay away.'”

Garry Cook was the former chief executive of Man City from May 2008, replacing the late Alistair Mackintosh.

Cook's initial task was player recruitment and he oversaw the signings of Tal Ben Haim, Brazilian striker Jo, Vicente Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta and Shaun Wright-Phillips.

Cook also signed agreements to Wayne Bridge, Craig Bellamy, shay given and Nigel de Jong.

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In September 2008, when Abu Dhabi United Group took over Manchester City, Cook completed the transfer of Robinho, who joined for a then-British record £32.5 million. real Madrid.

This year it was announced that Robinho will serve a nine-year prison sentence for rape, as part of a group sexual assault on a woman while he was playing for AC Milan.

Robinho's transfer record stood for three years, until Liverpool decided to pay £35 million to sign Andy Carroll from Newcastle.

Both deals are widely seen as some of the worst transfer decisions in Premier League history.

However, Carroll's record lasted only a few hours before Chelsea decided to surpass the highest transfer fee paid by a British club by signing Fernando Torres from Liverpool for £50 million.

The Spaniard was also seen as a failure at Stamford Bridge, where he was regularly sidelined by injuries, and history shows that his best years came in a Reds shirt.

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However, El Niño played a crucial role in the London club's surprise Champions League victory in the 2011/12 season (scoring an injury-time goal against Barcelona to help win the semi-final) and also lifted the Europa League. and FA Cup with the Blues.

Bowen, who presents the Business of Sport podcast, played in the Premier League for Tottenham Hotspur, norwich cityWest Ham and Charlton Athletic.

After retiring in 1999, he went on to manage the under-23 team in Crystal Palace in 2001 and was interim manager at Queens Park Ranger.

In 2019 he was at the head of Reading for a year and then took interim charge of AFC Wimbledon in 2022.