Lionel Messi was offered a contract by Manchester City on the same day that Sheikh Mansour sealed the takeover, according to the former coach of the club, who shared this information.

Mark Hughes, a former coach, disclosed that Sheikh Mansour, the Chairman of Manchester City, finalized his acquisition of the club in 2008 for a sum of £200 million and immediately began making efforts to attract some of the most significant personalities in the sport of football. The Argentine player Messi was the objective of the new owner’s recruitment attempts, but the millionaire from the United Arab Emirates was unable to secure his services. Robinho, a Brazilian player, was the first player the club signed in the new period, and he was the one who took the decision to replace others.

In the podcast titled “No Tippy Tappy Football,” which was hosted by William Hill and Footy Accumulators, Mark Hughes expressed his surprise by saying, “The first day Sheikh Mansour completed the takeover, I was extremely surprised.” When you asked me about it, I was out playing golf! However, I received phone calls from Gary Cook, who was the CEO of Manchester City at the time, informing me that the takeover was taking place and that they wanted a copy of it. I was playing against some of the staff members of Manchester City. The contract signifies the new ownership of the team.

‘Who do you want to buy?’ they asked me exactly that moment. There were a number of offers that they made to the majority of the best players in the globe. But people seem to forget that Manchester City was merely a club that was in the middle of the pack in the Premier League at that time. To tell you the truth, if you line up the stars from the center of the table to the bottom of the table, you won’t find very many of them interested in Man City.After then, a day of insanity arrived. Requests to purchase Lionel Messi are made on a consistent basis. After much effort, we were finally successful in persuading Robinho, and the rest, as they say, is history. It is true that Robinho was very close to being a member of Manchester United. He has high aspirations of catching up with Sir Alex Ferguson at the airport! To put it mildly, he is probably a little dissatisfied, to say the least,” the strategist, who is sixty years old, continued.

Despite the fact that Sheikh Mansour was unable to sign Messi, he has been successful in bringing a number of notable players to Etihad Stadium since then. During the time that Manchester City was the dominant team in the Premier League, notable players such as Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero, David Silva, and Kevin De Bruyne were all members of the club’s roster. The hefty expenditure continued later on, with Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku, and Jack Grealish being the most costly recent additions. Jack Grealish was also the most expensive.