As reported by Spanish daily ‘Mundo Deportivo’, Barcelona star was very close to switching the Camp Nou for the Etihad last summer.
The Argentine was handed a 21-month prison sentence for tax fraud in July, a scandal similar in many ways to the one presently surrounding Real Madrid striker Cristiano Ronaldo.
Said sentence, according to the mentioned source, was the determining factor in Messi wanting to leave Barca to reunite with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.
Messi burst out and made his desire to leave Spain public, with the Citizens prepared to pay £150 million to sign the superstar. Alarm bells went off at the Camp Nou and president Bartolomeu and vice-president Jordi Mestre attempted to convince the Argentine to stay.
It was, however, teammate Luis Suarez who finally managed to overturn Messi’s wish to quit Barca, though it took the former Liverpool man two days of lengthy talks.
Had it not been for the Uruguayan, Messi, who netted 37 times in La Liga, might have joined the Premier League side, and who knows how that would have turned out…
SOURCE: BESOCCER
