What does Man City 'guilty' verdict this mean for Pep Guardiola's legacy
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Pep Guardiola didn't get Manchester City fans initially. He thought they were pretty weird.
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At his first Champions League home match in charge, against Borussia Monchengladbach in September 2016, he was perplexed when the home supporters booed the famous competition anthem.
The reasons were multiple, from UEFA's risible response to City players receiving racial abuse in matches against Porto and CSKA Moscow, to a 2014 settlement punishing the club for breaches of Financial Fair Play regulations. These things have been going on for a while.
In his post-match news conference, Guardiola admonished the Etihad Stadium faithful: “I was not here for what happened, but they must forget what happened in the past. We have to be so proud to play in this competition."
By the time the Premier League's weighty charge sheet dropped in 2023, Guardiola was not in the business of forgetting what happened. City had been investigated by UEFA on the back of revelations published by Football Leaks in 2018 that alleged they inflated sponsorship deals with funding directly from their Abu Dhabi ownership. They were banned from the Champions League for two years in February 2020, only for that punishment to be overturned in July 2020 by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Guardiola spoke defiantly on his club's behalf when that ruling was published, and he was on the front foot once again when the Premier League's now long-infamous 115 case fell at City's door.
"Like Julius Caesar said, in this world there are not enemies or friends, just interests," he said during a crackling press briefing. "They want to take that position that we won on the pitch."
Guardiola now recognised the City fans who booed the UEFA anthem and threw his lot in with them. The man who advocates for Catalan self-determination and a fanbase who grew up yo-yo-ing the division in Manchester United's shadow saw the role of being downtrodden with their backs to the wall. Doing it because a state-backed ownership had apparently decided competition rules did not apply to them made this an uneasy fit when you zoomed out a little, but us against the world is an intoxicating construct in sports.
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Guardiola fostered a steely siege mentality in his City dressing room, telling his players: "Everything we have won, guys, has been on the pitch – always. I love the club, and I love you two". That preceded a 3-1 win over Aston Villa as City began their march to the treble, capped by a maiden Champions League success in 2022/23.
It was Guardiola's crowning achievement of so many in England. But the allegations that fuelled it now cast an heavy shadow over all of the modern Manchester City's successes. According to a report by The Athletic, City are guilty on "all but one" of the charges the Premier League brought against them.
Does Man City 'guilty' verdict affect Pep Guardiola's legacy?
Guardiola's emotional goodbye at the end of last season, when he bade farewell to "my Manchester City", does not mean he will blissfully pay this no mind on sabbatical. However much Friday's events will stoke the perception in some quarters that everything around City is artificial, the emotional connection he established during a decade in Manchester was absolutely genuine.
He has been texting friends after City wins this season, still referring to "we". The reported verdict will hurt Guardiola in the same way it has caused consternation among the club's supporters. He will be upset, and has every right to be. He went out to bat for the club's top brass repeatedly. That's a hierarchy that includes chief executive Ferran Soriano, who was vice-president of finances at Barcelona when Guardiola was appointed in May 2008, and chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, who became a close confidant to the sometimes temperamental coach. It's fair to say both men owe their friend an explanation and an apology.
The same can be said for the players who accomplished such fantastical feats on the field under Guardiola. Those 17 major honours and 20 trophies overall in 10 seasons. The most serious elements and the vast majority of the charges against City predate this. The City teams of Roberto Mancini (AGUEROOOOOOO!!!! and all that) and Manuel Pellegrini were far closer to ground zero.
It is true that, if guilty as now widely reported,, City gained a financial and resulting sporting advantage that the rules did not permit. Irrespective of your opinion on the Premier League's financial fair play legislation, they were rules all competitors were duty-bound to abide by. That's fundamentally how sporting competitions works. It seems City decided they were above that.
Guardiola's teams were built upon this apparently ill-gotten foundation, but what they accomplished in human and athletic terms was and remains phenomenal. It underscored Guardiola's credentials as a tactical innovator without compare in his era and unveiled the steely edge of a master motivator.
Whether Etisalat did or didn't fund City in 2013, it had scant impact on John Stones dominating the midfield from centre-back in the 2023 Champions League final. Those teams and their coach were a marvel. The words of their fiercest on-field foes speak volumes.
Andy Robertson and Jurgen Klopp on Man City 115 case
"For me, the players showed they were good enough on the pitch," said Andy Robertson, a key member of Jurgen Klopp's great Liverpool side that twice missed out on the title by a point to City in 2018/19 and 2021/22, when asked about Friday's bombshell on international duty with Scotland.
“I don’t know too much about the charges and stuff like that. But they had an incredible team, one that I loved battling against. I don’t think when it comes to these things that players are ever to blame. That’s all I can focus on.”
Robertson echoed the words of Klopp when he left Liverpool in 2024, sentiments that brought Guardiola to tears when they were relayed to him.
"Everybody knows about the 115 charges, but I have no clue what that means, I only know the number," he said during his final round of pre-match media duties as Liverpool manager. "No matter what transpired at Man City, Pep Guardiola is the best manager in the world and that is truly significant.
"Put any other manager in Man City, they don't win the Premier League four times in a row. That's down to him and his team. Does that mean they can do whatever they want? No. But I don't know what they did — if anything — and I'm not here to say they have.
"We'll see. Of course, I'd like to know [if City are guilty] one day. Everyone wants to know. But I'll be somewhere else. The quality of Pep makes the difference, so I don't worry about these things. It's not my problem."
Arsenal are the most likely beneficiaries of any period of flux at City. They are led by Mikel Arteta, who was Guardiola's assistant for his first three-and-a-half seasons in charge in Manchester. Bayern Munich will have a better shot at winning the Champions League if City remain in turmoil. They are led by Vincent Kompany, the City great who captained Guardiola's first two title wins and credited the Catalan for inspiring him to become a coach.
Getty ImagesThose stories of players and coaches Guardiola has inspired and taken to new heights are numerous. At Barcelona, he had a freakishly blessed generation of talent, including the greatest player of all time, playing football from outer space. At Bayern Munich, his teams looked wonderful but couldn't really fail. It was in England, within the relentless and ferocious competition of the Premier League, that he proved his methods could work anywhere, inspiring a decade of tactical actions and reactions.
This is why his reputation with those he coached and faced is unimpeachable. That legacy is going nowhere. But Guardiola is also a romantic, who loves what Barcelona meant to him as a kid, when he was a ballboy for Johan Cruyff the player before becoming the favourite pupil of Cruyff the manager.
Guardiola has a stand named after him at City now, and the team is led by Enzo Maresca – very much a continuity candidate. He is and will remain City's Cruyff, cherished by fans who saw their wildest dreams come true. The problem is that supporters of other clubs and numerous commentators can say, with varying degrees of legitimacy, that it was just that. A fantasy, not real. Guardiola's Centurions or four-in-a-row side will never be remembered as fondly as Cruyff's Dream Team or Arsene Wenger's Invincibles. Not now, not after this.
The 115 case remains without an official verdict, with a similarly torturous appeals process likely on the way. But Friday's reports suggest Guardiola was lied to repeatedly and defended the mistruth of "we did nothing wrong" on the back of those assurances. Some will say he deserves all he gets. He was handsomely paid to front a City operation that looked less-than squeaky clean when he arrived in 2016.
But the mud that will now stick to Guardiola, his fabulous players and the club's loyal supporters is the responsibility and eternal shame of anyone in the corridors of power at the Etihad Stadium, past or present, who have their prints on this grubby affair. They took the nuclear option time and again and it has blown up in their face. After all the incredible things he did at their behest, Guardiola should be furious with them.