Pep Guardiola on his Manchester City future amid financial allegations - 'more than ever I want to stay'
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Updated 10/02/2023 at 17:07 GMT
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has revealed he wants to stay at the club “more than ever” amid allegations of over 100 financial breaches from the current Premier League champions between 2009 and 2018. At the start of the week, City were charged by the Premier League after a four-year investigation. The club say they were “surprised” by the charges.
Man City have 'already been condemned' - Guardiola on club's financial charges
Pep Guardiola insists he wants to stay at Manchester City “more than ever” amid allegations of over 100 financial breaches by the club.
Guardiola signed a new two-year contract extension in November to stay at City until 2025, but in May last year he stated he would “walk away” if it was uncovered he was being lied to by the club’s owners.
On Monday, the Premier League revealed they had charged City for financial breaches between 2009 and 2018, which included three seasons where they won the league title.
“Hopefully the reason they are going to sack me is the results,” said Guardiola, when asked if he was more determined to fight in an extraordinary press conference on Friday.
“It is the reason managers take the position or leave it. I am not moving from this seat. I can assure you, more than ever I want to stay. Sometimes I have doubts, seven years already is a long time. Now I don't want to go.
“Not because people say 'they lied to you, Pep'. They didn't lie to me. Look what happened with UEFA. It is the same case. Why should I don't trust with my people? The CEOs of the 19 [Premier League] clubs, not my people.”
City were found guilty of committing "serious breaches" of UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations in 2020 but a two-year ban from European competition was overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Guardiola also insisted City “have already been condemned” by the other 19 teams in the Premier League and said they were driving an agenda for them to be punished severely.
Asked about whether other clubs don’t like City, he answered: “It is difficult for me to answer. I don't know.
“They open a precedent now, what they have done to us. [But] be careful in the future because many clubs can make suggestions and a lot of clubs can be accused like we are accused without being innocent.
“I can have an opinion and feeling, but I don't know. But when they push to get rid of us, that is obvious because they believe we didn't behave properly, and we can accept that, but let us defend when we did it properly.
“We showed [that] not one century ago, just a few years ago, in UEFA. It’s the same situation today as it was in the past and we didn't learn from that.”
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