US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino expressed dismay at news of Manchester City being found guilty of widespread financial improprieties on Monday, saying that fans “lived through a period of deception” because of City’s rule breaches. The Guardian and other outlets have reported that Manchester City have been found guilty by the Premier League of violating the vast majority of 115 different charges concerning violations of financial rules between 2009 and 2018. Pochettino was the manager of Tottenham Hotspur for five seasons, from 2014 to 2019, and of Southampton before that from 2013 to 2014.
He also took charge of Chelsea for a single season in 2023-24. I think we were the only team in the history of the Premier League with 18 months without [making a transfer]. They were so strict with us but also so lenient with others.
Because of that, that’s why I say: it’s all very strange.” Manchester City’s issues started when a 2018 investigation by German paper Der Spiegel showed potential financial improprieties, citing leaked internal documents, outlining a host of potential violations occurring over a 10-year span between 2008 and 2018. City – who have always denied the allegations – were subsequently charged by the Premier League in 2023 of falsifying details of their finances, with some of those issues centering around payments to players and coaches. They have also been accused of violating Uefa’s financial fair play regulations, and the Premier League’s own profit and sustainability rules (PSRs).
Uefa made an attempt at disciplining City in 2020, banning the club from Uefa-sanctioned competition like the Champions League and fining them €30m. That punishment was later overturned by the court for arbitration of sport; some of the violations, they said, occurred too long ago to be punished and others weren’t adequately proven. City are widely expected to appeal against the Premier League’s verdicts in the next two weeks and the ensuing legal proceedings could drag out for an extended period.
When asked what he feels a potential punishment should be, Pochettino again expressed his disappointment at the overall situation. At the end of the day many clubs followed the rules and some didn’t. Maybe they thought that the punishment [wouldn’t come for a lot of years] – what are they going to do?
At the end of the day we get into a situation where what got celebrated wasn’t that real, what seemed good maybe wasn’t so good, what didn’t look good maybe was good but couldn’t be good because of what happened. At the end of the day, we went through something where sporting fairness didn’t exist. So, how do you repair everything that was damaged because of that, if it’s true all of the 114 rules that were broken, we’ve lived through a period of deception.” Last week, Pochettino offered his thoughts on the punishment handed down to Chelsea, who were found guilty of similar violations on a much smaller scale.
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