Man City: Pep Guardiola hits back at ‘whispering’ Premier League rivals after Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho comments

City manager took aim at Premier League rivals and demanded apologies

Pep Guardiola hit back at Manchester City’s ‘whispering’ Premier League rivals on Tuesday afternoon in the wake of their successful appeal against their two-year Champions League ban.

In a heated press conference dominated by Monday’s verdict from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Guardiola insisted that City deserve apologies after receiving “no presumption of innocence” from other clubs.

In March, it was revealed that eight Premier League clubs - Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Leicester City, Arsenal, Wolves, Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley - attempted to prevent City from playing in the Champions League while their appeal process was still ongoing.

Guardiola was also speaking shortly after both Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho questioned the CAS verdict, describing the panel’s decision as “not a good day for football” and “disgraceful” respectively.

When asked whether he expected other clubs to now stop questioning City, he said: “It would be nice but I don’t think so. How many times people came to this club whispering on us.

“I’d like it to finish, I’d like to say people look in our eyes and if you have to say it, do it face to face. Then play on the pitch as rivals and if you beat us don’t hesitate, we’ll shake hands and congratulate them.

“But they lost off the pitch, they have to go on the pitch and try beat us on the pitch. Like a sportsman. If we did something wrong we accept our ban, any departments - Fifa, Uefa, Premier League - we are here. But we can defend ourselves.

“After yesterday it was a great day for football, not a bad day, as it was shown we were playing the same way as other clubs. We can play in the Champions League next season as what we’ve done is right and proper. Go on the pitch now and play against us.”

Guardiola described himself as “incredibly happy” with the Cas verdict but was less pleased with the comments of his fellow managers.

“Jose and other managers should know, we were damaged, we should be apologised to,” he added.

“If we did something wrong, we will accept the decisions from Uefa and Cas because you did something wrong, but we don’t expect Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Wolves etc, to defend us, but we can defend ourselves.

“We have the right to defend ourselves when we believe what we have done is correct. It’s right. Three independent judges said this. It was a good day for football as we play with the same rules as all the clubs in Europe, if we’d broke the rules we’d be banned.

“We can defend ourselves because the club believed we were right what we have done and three judges gave us the reasons, that we were on the right path what we’d done. We were damaged.

“The people say we cheated were lying – and many times. The presumption of innocence wasn’t there and after it was right so of course now we are incredibly happy because we can defend what we’ve done on the pitch.

“I know for the elite clubs - Liverpool, United, Arsenal – are not comfortable being here. But we deserve to be here, we deserve to be stronger, year by year. Incredible people working in this club to make this club better, to make our fans proud and we don’t have to ask permission to be there.

“When we lose I shake their hands and congratulate them, all the time we have done it, even if it’s unfairly in the Champions League. Guys accept it, we wanted to be here and we tried on the pitch. If you do not agree, knock on the door and speak to our chairman and chief executive and talk, don’t go whispering. We are going to do this – seven eight clubs, doing this.

“Go and do it on the pitch, not behind. In 10 years we’ve made a step forward. We invested a lot of money but we did it in the right things. We are not banned, we followed the rules for FFP as they decide. If not, we’d be banned. We’ve done it properly in the right way, Uefa say we do it and we do it. People have to understand right now that we are here to try to compete on the pitch at the same level as the elite clubs in the Premier League and Europe.”

Guardiola stopped short of committing to signing a new deal at City but said that even if the club had been relegated to League Two, he would have stayed in place.

“Now is the normal situation like every season. If the situation was uncertain, I don’t know what would happen. I said I would stay and it didn’t matter if we were in the Champions League.

“Some people in England suggested we should play in League Two, I would have stayed. I respect the others, now I said we’ve an incredible four or five weeks ahead, if we are good enough to beat Arsenal and then we’ll play the final and then have time to think about it.”