Manchester City scandal latest as Pep Guardiola speaks: Football Weekly Extra

Football Weekly

The Guardian Football Weekly podcast dissects the fallout from the Premier League's independent panel report detailing Manchester City's alleged financial misconduct and sponsorship breaches spanning over a decade. Panelists

Key takeaways

• Philippe Auclair highlights that the 40-page report contains 7,000 pages of witness transcripts and millions of documents, concluding that key club witnesses gave false evidence amounting to perjury.
• The panel discusses how Manchester City's titles between 2009 and 2018 may forever carry an asterisk due to the scale of the alleged cheating and dishonesty.

Main topics

• Manchester City financial misconduct report
• Potential punishments and expulsion scenarios

Notable quotes

"We concluded that evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the club was false in a number of key respects, and... certain of those factual witnesses had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue."

Conclusion

The episode underscores how the Manchester City scandal represents a wat

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) This is The Guardian. Speaker 4 (0:12) Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. Philippe Auclair off his long run. Manchester City still the only story in town. Pep Guardiola says he's here more than ever despite not actually being there. Other Premier League owners want this sorted this season. Andy Burnham sitting on the fence. Micah Richards devastated. And Etihad Airways are not happy. We'll look ahead to the Nations League. Will the Croatians be tired? Gag so tired that I'll avoid doing it. Cristiano Ronaldo, an unused sub at the weekend, leaves the squad a few days later. He'll tell us the truth later. What irrefutable evidence does he have? your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly. Speaker 4 (0:46) On the panel today, Barry Glendening, welcome. Hi, Max. From Not The Top 20, Ali Maxwell, hello. Hi, Max. Sam Pickard posted the gif of David Brent and Mackenzie Crook with the headline, Go and Get Eau Claire. Pablo says, We want the skewering we need, Philippe. So there were many, I don't know, between 50 and 100 calls for you after the City News broke on Friday. So, look, it's an enormous story. There was so much to report each day. We begin with you, Philippe. The floor is yours. Speaker 2 (1:20) Damn it. What can I say? I don't know. Speaker 2 (1:27) I'm still in a state of disbelief, really. And I think the first thing I will do is to proffer an apology. And the apology will go to the Premier League and to the panel of judges. I think that plenty of us were starting to wonder if the whole thing was just an exercise in drowning the fish, as we say in France. So to make sure that the grass that this particular football... was going to be kicked in was going to be very very very long indeed and actually there would never be a mower to take care of it. And in fact, I think we were wrong. When you read the 40-page document, unfortunately, the appendices are really where the action happens, have not been made public, and I doubt they ever will. But you realize that the transcript of the witnesses was 7,000 pages long, and that there were actually millions of documents that they had to go through. Talking about the witnesses, by the way, if I can just... Deliver a little early tackle. Paragraph 29. Please. Paragraph 29. I love that one. We concluded that the majority of witnesses of fact who gave evidence before us were doing their best, and so on and so on. However, we concluded that evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the club was false in a number of key respects, and, I love that chaser, B, that certain of those factual witnesses had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue. and so had been dishonest. It's not just all about the money, even if that's a lot of money. 900 million quid is rather a lot of money. It's basically when you add the value of Silva, Aguero, De Bruyne, Touré, basically that's the money they bought those star players with. But it goes beyond that because it has to do with the dishonesty as well, the lying, and what would be considered in a civil court a case of perjury, basically. And the enormity of the charges and the tone, the damning tone of this report, which it has to be, you know, you have to remember who wrote it. It's not the Premier League that wrote it. It's a panel of independent judges who are chosen by a barrister whose identity is unknown to anyone, apart from themselves, I would imagine. But Richard Masters don't know who these people are, has absolutely no idea about it. I can vouch for that. They are people who are judges or barristers who have at least 10 years experience. So their opinion is not exactly biased, which is why the reaction in that amazing video clip of Ferran Soriano, have you noticed it? He doesn't blink once in 3 minutes 32 seconds. Speaker 4 (4:26) It's Speaker 2 (4:26) unbelievable. And he talks about the position of the judges. No, my friend, it's a verdict. You're guilty. You're guilty as hell. You can appeal, and good luck with that, because the evidence must be pretty strong, is pretty strong. And so now we are entering the posturing. But I think that the report is so strong, and the terms chosen so strong too, and the response of the football world, including, by the way, some Manchester City fans. I don't know if you've... been in touch with a few of them, but I have, who have said that they were ashamed, basically. Obviously, I'm not in touch with the Gallagher brothers, and thank goodness for that. They are in an untenable situation, and whatever happens, their name is forever tainted. Whatever happens, there will be an asterisk for those titles won between 2009 and 2018, which is, you know, three Premier League titles, one FA Cup, three League Cups. That's a lot. And so they're dead. And that's it. That's the terrible thing is that City not only have betrayed football and have killed the competition when they were doing that, but they've also killed their own club. Speaker 2 (5:45) because it means nothing. Everything they've achieved means absolutely nothing. It's what Roy King was saying, chuck your medals in the bins, you know, guys, do it. That's it. The last Manchester City team to have won the championship, you've got to go back to Franny Lee and those guys. And that's it. So it's a tragedy. And it's at the same time a tragedy, which is a huge moment of release, I think, for all of football. We can put this, not behind us, but we can... We can look at it and not think that we're going to be taken on for a ride any longer. And I totally disagree with the idea that this actually taints the Premier League as a whole. I entirely disagree with that. The Premier League, whatever its faults, and there are many, had the courage to do this and to see the process through. And I'm not sure that's something which would have happened in other leagues. It certainly hasn't happened in France, where... You'd like this kind of forensic examination going on. And it's never happened in Spain, where a couple of clubs, shall we say, could do with this kind of forensic analysis as well. And it's never been the case and never will be. So in the long term, I think people are looking at England thinking, well, it's pretty brave of you guys to actually attack, you know, and go for the jugular and punish. And I think we can now all... Speaker 2 (7:08) Is there such a word as delectate? I think there is. Taking the a la carte of punishment and just go, I'll have the tasting menu, all 18 courses of them, please. And start with something small, like a 115 million pounds fine. That would be the first item on the menu. And then it ends up with, of course, the expulsion from the league. And I want it all, basically. I think we can afford ourselves a little tap on the back, but also look back at the way that we journalists who have been trying to shed some light on Manchester City have been fighting against threats throughout, coming from fans who had been weaponized by the hierarchy of the club. Some of us, one of us... Um, his, his, his home was actually attacked by some of those thugs. Journalists couldn't walk unattended from, uh, the city of Manchester stadium after the games. Fearing because they would feel on their own because they would fear being taken to task bar. Some excited fans who believed that they were all employed, that they had an agenda. I wanted to destroy that club, which is obviously absolutely false. So we should remember that as well. And now we can look forward to what's going to happen this season. I don't know what you think, but that game at Anfield is going to be a bit special, I think. But it's not what happens afterwards, because what we will see at Anfield will probably happen absolutely everywhere else. And it's going to be a long, long season for Manchester City and for its players. whatever those players may think at the moment. And I should stop here because every single sentence leads to another sentence, leads to another sentence, because this is just the biggest cataclysm, catastrophe to have ever hit English football, ever. We could carry on. This is not the long run. The long run starts in the dressing room, man. And I'm rushing. And there are others who are waiting as well for their turn, you know. And there's also the other elephant in the room. which is that we're talking about the guilt and what they've done. We should never forget who's done it and what this club represents. Because this club is actually the emanation of a political power, a political power which is basically, we would call that an authoritarian regime in the Gulf, and who is actually supporting at the moment armed forces in what is one of the most... brutal conflicts we've had in Africa since Rwanda, which is in Sudan, and their involvement is evidenced. And we shouldn't forget that this is also the other picture of that club. It's got nothing to do with the fans, nothing to do with the players. Of course, we had to do with the people who own it and have devised this strategy of cheating, which miraculously stopped in 2018. And nothing has been going on ever since, obviously. Speaker 2 (10:21) Silence. And back to the studio. And Speaker 4 (10:25) that's Speaker 2 (10:25) all Speaker 4 (10:25) we have time for today. Thanks, Sally. Thank you, Barry. Thank you, Philippe. You did credit the journalist. As far as I learned yesterday, it was only Richard Keyes who had been talking about Manchester City for the last eight years. There have been no other journalists on this. Pep Guardiola yesterday came out and said, I want every single Manchester City fan across the world to know I am here more than ever. I am, always have been, always will be behind my club, my owner, my chairman, Ferran, the players, staff, Enzo, and you are unique supporters. Also, Pep, in 2022, I said to them, if you lie to me, the day after I'm not here, I will be out and I will not be your friend anymore. Which is it, Barry? Speaker 3 (11:05) I mean, he's... technically out but his legacy is forever entwined with uh what has happened to city so he's also very much in and over the last couple of days that clip of him being asked about if he was receiving off book payments from city when rob harris uh who now works for sky Rob's nickname in the trade for anyone who doesn't know is Trouble because he's very much not afraid to ask the difficult questions. And after the FA Cup final, when Manchester City humiliated Watford, he asked Pep, you know, was he receiving off-puck payments in the same way as Roberto Mancini had? And it was very much Pep was clearly furious. He didn't deny that he was receiving off-book payments. He just sort of stressed, now is not the time. You know, we've just won the FA