Manchester City deny negotiations with Barcelona’s Lionel Messi

The rumors surrounding Messi’s Barcelona future have resurged.

It should not come as a surprise that the talks about Lionel Messi’s future at Barcelona have resurfaced. Especially following the loss to PSG in the Champions League.

That defeat was another reminder of how far the club have fallen and how if Messi wants to win another European trophy, he might have to do it somewhere else.

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There are only two other clubs who can possibly afford his wages and those are PSG and Manchester City. PSG have not been afraid to link themselves with Messi but the side managed by Pep Guardiola have been much more discrete about their pursuit.

So much so that they are denying that they have even made an approach for the Argentine star.

According to ESPN’s Rob Dawson, City have not opened transfer talks with Messi and are waiting for him to decide his future at Barcelona before opening up formal negotiations.

Since late last year, when he started to talk in interviews, Messi has maintained that he will not make a decision about his future until a new Barcelona president is elected.

Once that happens, he will listen to the sporting project of the winning candidate and decide whether or not he wants to be a part of that.

All three of the candidates have promised that they will do their best to try to convince Messi to stay.

A move to City would make sense considering Guardiola managed Messi during the best years of Barcelona’s history. City is also a team that seem to be well run regardless of one’s opinion on how much money they spend in the transfer market.

The point is that they do go out and improve the club but don’t break the bank in doing so. At least not in the way the Catalans have done in the last couple of seasons. They are a team built to win now.

Everyone knows how much Messi makes given the leak of his contract. But above all else, he’s made it known that what he really wants is to win titles. As it stands, there are few places better where he can achieve that than at Manchester City.