Manchester, (Samajweekly) Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said that the club should be apologised to after the two-year ban from European football on the club was lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Guardiola said that City were “damaged” from the allegations while Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho and Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp both spoke against the decision.
“José and other managers should know: we were damaged, we should be apologised to,” said Guardiola in a virtual press conference. “If we did something wrong, we will accept the decisions from UEFA and CAS. 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.
“Three independent (CAS) judges said this. It was a good day for football as we play with the same rules as all the clubs in Europe. We were damaged,” he said.
“The people say we cheated and were lying — and many times. The presumption of innocence wasn’t there. It would be nice (for the innuendo to stop now) but I don’t think so. What happened in recent years, how many times people came to our club to whisper about us, I would love it to finish.
“Liverpool, United and especially Arsenal are not comfortable [about us] being here (in the elite). But we deserve to be here — we deserve to be stronger, year by year. There are incredible people working to make this club better, to make our fans proud. We don’t have to ask permission to be there.
“If you do not agree, knock on the door and speak to our chairman and chief executive — don’t go whispering. We are going to do this — seven, eight clubs, doing this.”
Mourinho had earlier said that CAS’s decision to overturn the ban but hand a 10 million Euro to City was “disgraceful” and spelt the end of financial fair play.
