Man City on red-alert as Messi reveals discontent at Barca board

The big news coming out of Spain this week has been that of Lionel Messi’s unrest at Barcelona and Man City are poised to launch an audacious bid to land the world’s best player.

Messi has scored over 300 goals for Barca since joining the club as a youngster and it was widely expected that the three-time Ballon d’Or would never leave the Catalan club.

However Man City, PSG and Chelsea have all been put on red-alert by the Argentine’s comments in the press this week.

Lionel Messi has won 83 caps for Argentina, scoring 37 goals

Referring to a statement from director Javier Faus that Messi – or “that senor” as Faus called him – would not be getting a pay-rise, the Argentine spoke unusually openly on Argentinian radio.

Messi said: “Barcelona is the best club in the world and should be represented by the best board members too. Senor Faus is someone who doesn’t know anything about football and wants to manage Barcelona like a business, which it is not.

“Besires, I would remind him that neither I not anyone from my camp has asked for any wage increase and he knows that very well.”

Combined with reports in the Spanish press that have questioned his father’s role in charity work, there is a feeling that for the first time Messi is not enamoured with life in Catalonia.

Barcelona have won La Liga in four of the last five seasons

Man City are the most obvious club to launch the first bid, with owners Abu Dhabi United Group possessing the enormous wealth needed to fund such a deal.

City have already bought the Argentinian Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid, as well as Spain’s Alvaro Negredo from Sevilla, so they have a history of paying Spanish clubs a lot of money for their strikers.

Messi would command a world record fee were he to change clubs, as well as costing up to £400,000 in weekly wages.

However the 26-year-old is a still a commercial asset across the world and his eye-watering transfer fee would be offset by shirt sales all over the globe.