Champions League exile clouds Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City future

Pep Guardiola desires the Champions League above all else – will he really want to see out his contract at Manchester City?

Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola, who may look for the exit if he cannot chase the Champions League. Picture: Getty Images

When news landed on Friday of UEFA banning Manchester City from the Champions League for two seasons, we were taken back to the media theatre at Wembley, on May 18 last year.

There, Pep Guardiola, whose team had just thrashed Watford in the FA Cup final, arrived plainly expecting acclaim for England’s first ever men’s domestic treble.

Instead, he was grilled on allegations he is paid by companies associated with Sheik Mansour, the City owner, to circumvent Financial Fair Play.

Guardiola was livid, asking his interrogator: “Do you think I deserve these sort of questions?”

The club lurks, silent, behind a typically opaque statement. There is talk about “all out war” on football’s authorities. It seems a funny way to go about the chief executive Ferran Soriano’s goal of “globalising the Barcelona model”.

Remember: Manchester City are, at core, supposed to be a hearts and minds project. The club was bought by an Abu Dhabi prince and pumped with billions of petrodollars in order to glory the reputation of his country.

City have never been just about winning — or never wanted to be seen as just about winning.

Why Barcelona? They are the club, or certainly were when Soriano arrived in 2012, seen as the most romantic and beautiful in the game. Replicate it. Globalise it. Make the whole planet fall for City (and, by proxy, Abu Dhabi). That was the aim.

But love is rather like respect. Others give it, you can only earn it, not demand it. Bulldozing a path to there does not work.

In the middle is Guardiola. An ex-colleague at Bayern Munich, who got close to him there, doubted he would ever leave for City.

“Pep loves the historic clubs,” said the co-worker, who expected to see him at Manchester United or Arsenal instead.

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Yet Guardiola surprised him, choosing City because of his friendship with Soriano and the director of football, Txiki Begiristain, who convinced him he could build his own history and beauty there. City, with their billions, also seemed to give him the best chance of reacquiring the trophy he prizes above all others — the Champions League.

In the past two and a half years, despite producing some of the best results of his career, Guardiola has worn a ribbon for Catalan political prisoners only to have his belief system questioned because of human-rights issues in Abu Dhabi.

He has had other awkward press conferences, thanks to his club and FFP. In December 2018, just after the allegations leading to UEFA’s sanction were published in Der Spiegel, he was required to defend his employers.

“We will not be banned, no” Guardiola said.

“That’s what I think because of what my chairman (Khaldoon Al Mubarak) and my CEO have explained to me and I trust in them.”

The allegations — based on internal City emails passed to Der Spiegel by a Portuguese hacker — are that the club overstated sponsorship income in accounts between 2012 and 2016 in order to mislead UEFA and pass FFP.

One observer said Guardiola’s remarks — that he trusted his superiors’ view that there was no question of wrongdoing or not abiding by the rules — give him “a perfect get-out” to walk away.

There is a break clause in his contract that he can trigger this summer. If he stays until the end of his deal, in 2021, he would face spending his final season at City excluded from the competition he most reveres.

What of the players? The market moves fast and predators have already put out feelers to see if the ban changes the position of stars such as Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling.

City need to add to their squad — they do not want to expend effort holding on to the talent they already have. A rebuild is clearly required but most elite players only want to sign for clubs playing in the Champions League. To lure them without that carrot usually involves throwing silly wages their way. Not a recipe for good recruitment. Ask Manchester United.

What’s more, how extravagantly can City finance a revamp with the FFP hawks now watching more closely than ever and without Champions League income, which netted them around £66m ($128m) last season?

City are appealing to CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport). In their statement, the club said they were “disappointed but not surprised” by UEFA’s decision. One of City’s major objections is that, in December 2018, UEFA’s decision to charge the club was reported in the New York Times and elsewhere before it was announced.

This leads City to imply their case was prejudged and their statement talked of a “flawed and consistently leaked UEFA process”.

It concluded: “Simply put, this is a case initiated by UEFA, prosecuted by UEFA and judged by UEFA. With this prejudicial process now over, the club will pursue an impartial judgment.”

The reference here to “process’’ is telling. Should CAS go against them, City’s final option would be to appeal to Switzerland’s Supreme Court, and while it is rare for that chamber to overrule CAS based on the merits of a case, there is more likelihood of it doing so on the basis of process.

It may be — as some precedent suggests — that CAS will uphold UEFA’s ruling but reduce the sanction to a one-year ban.

But, despite the belligerence, City’s rap sheet is filling up. Add to the latest ruling, a 2014 fine of £49m for other FFP breaches, a FIFA fine for breaking transfer rules and a 2017 Premier League ban on signing academy players.

They can counter-accuse the authorities. They can tie football up in legal red tape. They can yell when scrutinised. It may reassure their fanbase but what the outside world sees is a business that has spent what it takes to get success and is now threatening to do what it takes to challenge the rules it signed up to and by which everyone else must abide.

If this City project is about hearts and minds, that’s an awkward picture to sell.

The Sunday Times