Former Manchester City assistant manager Mark Bowen has revealed the club accidentally made a £35million bid for Lionel Messi.

The incident happened in 2008, with Garry Cook as chief executive and the club looking to make a big-name signing to showcase their prowess. However, a

hilarious miscommunication led to City accidentally submitting a bid for Messi.

“It happened on deadline day and Garry Cook said to Mark Hughes, ‘Yeah, the owner wants to make a statement,'” Bowen has said. “

At one point we had bids in excess of £30m for Berbatov, Robinho, Franck Ribery. Because they would have gone for £30m or £35m and someone would have accepted. ยูฟ่าเบท http://ufabet999.app In the end it was Robinho. “

While all this was going on, Cook was in London and he had his people contacting a bunch of parties. ” “

But all of a sudden they sent this offer to the president of Barcelona, ​​and it turned out that City were offering £35m for Messi. “

“Then we found out the truth and somebody, I think Cook, said ‘Holy shit, this is getting messy. ” He said the word messy and someone took the wrong step and sent an offer to Barca for Messi. “

“Their president got back to them saying ‘Who the hell do you think you are? Do you think you can buy Messi from us? ” No way, go away.’

Cook’s job at the time was to strengthen the squad and he helped City sign the likes of Tal Ben Haim, Jo, Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Wayne Bridge, Shay Given and Nigel de Jong. In

September 2008, Abu Dhabi United took over the club and Cook completed the signing of Robinho for a then British record fee of £32.5 million.