FORMER Manchester City assistant Mark Bowen has revealed the club once lodged an “accidental” £35m bid for Lionel Messi.
And the offer got City’s new ownership in hot water with Barcelona’s president who told the Prem side, “who the f*** do you think you are?”
Mark Bowen has revealed the club once lodged an ‘accidental’ bid for Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi was slowly becoming the best player in the world back in 2008
Bowen served as Mark Hughes’ assistant manager at a number of clubs and followed his countryman to City in 2008 following Sheikh Mansour’s takeover
Back in 2008, flushed with cash from their new Abu Dhabi backed owners, City were spending money for fun.
During that summer, they brought in Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, Tal Ben Haim, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Brazilian striker Jo.
But they were still keen to land a marquee name – which eventually saw them break the British transfer record for Robinho from Real Madrid for £32.5m.
However, there was a point during that summer that the Cityzens were just throwing out bids here, there and everywhere.
And this approach led to a “messy” mix-up which saw City chastised by Barca president Joan Laporta for their accidental £35m Messi bid.
Bowen told the ‘Business of Sport’ podcast: “So Garry Cook [Ex-Manchester City CEO] had said to Mark Hughes, 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 chucking out to these clubs in Europe, £35m, £30m, to see which one would bite, right?
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“So while all this was going on, Cook’s in London, he’s got different people on the board who are in there, and you’re all chasing around, ringing this, ringing that.
“All of a sudden they get this thing through from Barcelona, from Laporta, who basically goes online and in the media saying, ‘who the f*** do Man City think they are, they’re taking the p***’”.
Robinho was Man City’s first marquee signing
He continued: “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 were all the people in this office and somebody had turned around, probably 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, ‘you think you can buy Lionel Messi off us?’”
Robinho’s signing had come out of the blue and the Brazilian made an infamous gaffe on arrival after calling his new club Chelsea.
And his reason for signing remains unforgettable: “Yes, I thought I was joining Manchester United.
“I was misled by all involved. I wasn’t aware there was another Manchester club.”
He made 41 appearances for City before being loaned out to Santos for a season before joining AC Milan.
Cook also penned deals for Wayne Bridge, Craig Bellamy, Shay Given and Nigel de Jong.
Hughes’ No.2 Bowen played in the Premier League for Tottenham Hotspur, Norwich City, West Ham and Charlton.