Man City ‘bid for Lionel Messi when he was 21’ but ended up completing transfer for £32.5m star instead, ex-boss reveals
MANCHESTER CITY bid for a 21-year-old Lionel Messi, according to former manager Mark Hughes.
The Welshman had been in charge when the Abu Dhabi United Group completed their takeover in August 2008.
A busy end to the transfer window followed as City pulled off the shock signing of Robinho from Real Madrid for £32.5million.
However, Hughes has now revealed that it could have been Messi who moved to the Etihad Stadium instead.
Appearing on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, he recalled: “The first day of the takeover being complete came as a surprise for me because I was out playing golf!
“I was playing with some of the staff because it was a day off, but I was getting these phone calls from Gary Cook, who was the CEO at the time, telling me that the takeover was happening and that they wanted a marquee signing to mark the new ownership of the 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.
“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.
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“We had to try to make it happen and I knew the Real Madrid coach at the time, Bernd Schuster, so I was on the phone to him asking if there was any chance of letting Robinho speak to us.
“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.
“There’s probably a grain of truth in the rumour that Robinho thought he was actually signing for Manchester United.
“He certainly didn’t recognise me when he turned up, he was probably expecting to see Sir Alex Ferguson at the airport! He was probably a bit disappointed to say the least.”
Robinho went on to score 16 goals and provide 12 assists in 53 appearances for City before he was sold to AC Milan in 2010.
As for Messi, the Argentine icon is now an eight-time Ballon d’Or winner and has scored 715 career club goals.
Meanwhile, Hughes would remain in charge of City for another year.
He was sacked in December 2009 following a 4-3 win over Sunderland which left City sixth in the Premier League.
The 60-year-old has since had spells in charge of Fulham, QPR, Stoke, Southampton and Bradford, who he left in October this year.