City chief: We would open the doors wide for Messi
Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano says the club would “open the doors wide” for Lionel Messi if he ever decided he wanted to leave Barcelona.
The Argentina international was at his brilliant best in Barca’s 4-0 victory over City on Wednesday, scoring a hat-trick to take down Pep Guardiola’s side.
Soriano – who knows Messi from his time with the Catalan club – revealed they would do all they could to sign Messi if he ever wanted a move but admits it is unlikely, as he and Barca are so well suited.
#Star #D10s.. The best things in life are #untaggable. Our players have been given dozens of tags. What if we confront them with those tags? pic.twitter.com/Vs9oSyChis
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 20, 2016
“Messi is the best player in the world,” said Soriano. “If one day he wants to come to City, we would open the doors wide for him.
“We didn’t call him. The natural thing for Messi is to finish his career in Barcelona. We haven’t made any offers to any Barcelona players.
“What usually happens is that there are agents that call Barca who say they have an offer from City and after, Barcelona call us to ask if it’s true.
“With Barca we talk often. We have a good relationship with Bartomeu [Barcelona president].
“Before the summer we met [with Bartomeu] and we spoke about the players that were of interest to us so that agents didn’t trick us.”