Manchester City will wait until Lionel Messi has decided his Barcelona future before thinking about negotiations with the six-time Ballon d’Or recipient.
It had been reported that an offer had already been put to Messi, but City have strongly refuted this.
Barca have won their last seven league games and are unbeaten in 12 and, as such, aren’t quite out of the La Liga title race, but Tuesday night’s 4-1 thrashing at home to PSG has left them on the verge of their earliest Champions League exit for 14 years.
The current sense that it is something of an end of an era at the Nou Camp, coupled with the club’s pandemic-induced financial hit, will have fuelled speculation that Messi will move on to pastures new this summer.
December saw the man many will call the greatest player of all time break Pele’s all-time domestic scoring record by netting for the 644th time in a 3-0 win over Real Valladolid.
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