Pep Guardiola claims critics are out to eradicate Manchester City

City, the team that has been a dominant force in English football since Guardiola’s arrival in 2016, is currently facing a serious threat of a potential points deduction or even expulsion from the league. This comes as a result of the club being accused of violating financial regulations in a total of 115 charges.

A long-awaited hearing into charges brought by the Premier League in February 2023 finally began on Sept 16.

Guardiola has claimed previously that some of the club’s rivals hope to see them found guilty and he appears in no doubt they would expect punishment to be severe.

La Liga president Javier Tebas seemed to corroborate this view, saying: “I have spoken with many Premier League clubs, and most of them understand that City should be sanctioned.”

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire told talkSPORT that if all the charges are proven, “the points deduction would be somewhere in the region of 60 to 100 points, on the basis that they’d want the club to have suffered enough to be on heading out of the division.”

The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, reported that Premier League teams feel that even a severe points deduction which would see City relegated would not be suitable if the club are found guilty of most or all of the charges “given the scale of cheating that would have been proven”.

Guardiola brought up the matter unprompted ahead of the clash with their closest title challengers for the past two seasons, Arsenal, at the Etihad Stadium on Sept 22, while talking about the tendency of people to overly criticise isolated bad performances.

“During a season, you can say, ‘Oh, it was a bad season’,” said Guardiola.

“But for performances some people say, ‘Oh, it’s a disgrace, it is a disaster, it’s unacceptable’. No, during 90 minutes it’s one bad afternoon when they were better.

“But I would say – I’m sorry, I want to defend my club, especially in these modern days when everyone is expecting us not to be relegated, to be disappeared off the face of the Earth, the world – that we have better afternoons than the opponents. That’s why we win a lot.”

City face 80 breaches of financial rules between 2009 and 2018, plus a further 35 of failing to cooperate with a Premier League investigation.

The club stand accused of failing to provide accurate financial information, including revenue from sponsors and salary details of managers and players.

However, City have vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

Former City defender Aymeric Laporte, who won five league titles and the Champions League during his time at the club told The Daily Mail: “When I was there and the news broke, the sporting director (Txiki Begiristain) and the CEO (Ferran Soriano) came and told all the players and staff that we can all be very calm because not one rule has been broken.” AFP