During a lengthy chat with AS, football agent Andre Cury, who represents Barcelona new signing Vitor Roque, has revealed that the Catalans had received a massive €200 million offer from Manchester City for Lionel Messi a year before his departure.

Cury, who has close ties with Barcelona, having worked as the club’s scout in Brazil until 2020, claims that the Catalans turned down big money for Messi only to see him leave for free a year later.

It must be remembered that the summer of 2020 was when Messi sent the infamous burofax in which he had asked to leave the club.

The Argentine superstar was not happy with how the club was being run by the administration led by former president Josep Maria Bartomeu at that time while results were also taking a hit.

As such, he asked to leave the club and it seems that Manchester City seemed to capitalise on the same, by lodging a big offer.

“Barcelona had an offer from Manchester City of up to 200 million euros for Leo Messi a year before he left and they didn’t want to sell him. A year before. They knew he was going to finish his contract,” Cury said.

In the end, though, Barcelona turned down the offer and Messi stayed with the club, only to leave a year later as the Blaugrana could not renew his contract.

The Argentine World Cup winner spent two seasons at PSG and could have returned to Barça this summer when his contract expired, but the stars did not align and he is now plying his trade in the MLS with Inter Miami.

Vinicius Jr could have joined Barcelona, says Cury

Andre Cury has spoken about the matter on multiple occasions previously, claiming that Vinicius Jr was close to joining Barcelona before Real Madrid made a last-minute swoop and the forward’s agents betrayed the club.

He once again touched upon it during the chat with AS, saying: “It was a done deal. We didn’t do the operation before because of the player’s agents, with whom I no longer speak and who were my best friends.

“Real Madrid didn’t know Vinicius when they signed him. They didn’t even know who he was. The agents were like my brothers.”

Cury then went on to add that Barcelona had their eyes on Rodrygo as well, but Real Madrid spent heavily to land him.

“Later, when I was working in Barcelona, we went for Rodrygo when nobody knew him, but I knew he was very good. I told my boss at the time, Pep Segura, “Pep, don’t worry. I have a better player than this (Vinicius),” he said.

“I think they were scared that Vinicius wouldn’t work out and they said: ‘Imagine we sign the wrong guy and Barcelona sign this one, well, we’ll sign them both.’ For Rodrygo they paid even more money.”