El Mundo has revealed just how close Pep Guardiola and Manchester City came to convincing Lionel Messi to join them. Messi’s team, according to the report, held talks with the Premier League champions over several months between December 2016 and November 2017.
Messi seriously considered signing for the club after having concerns over the possibility of Catalan independence. In fact, in his current contract, he is allowed to leave on a free if the region does become independent he is allowed out leave on a free if Barcelona are left out of a major European league.
Messi, reportedly, was offered a whopping 250 million euros over five years, as well as City paying his release clause, which at that time was also €250m. This breaks down to a weekly wage of 961k a week, a remarkable amount of money, even for the world’s best player.
Talks took place between Messi’s agent, also his father, Jorge and City’s CEO. Messi’s father was due to be paid 50 million euros if he could make his son join the Citizens and move to the Premier League.
However, Messi, turned down the move and instead signed a new four-year deal with Barcelona, which saw his wage increase to 35 million euros a year whilst his release clause has now increased to €700m. Unfortunately for Man City fans, it looks like the ship has sailed on this deal.
Just imagine how good Man City would have been if they had Messi in their attack! The Premier League would not have known what hit it.
He's scored 105 goals in 127 games in the competition 😳👏
We've picked out 1️⃣0️⃣ of his best...
