{"id":788642,"date":"2026-10-01T15:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788642\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T15:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:00:09","slug":"guardiola-involvement-in-illegal-money-payments-explained-as-seven-year-old-man-city-accusation-resurfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788642\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardiola involvement in ‘illegal money payments’ explained as seven-year-old Man City ‘accusation’ resurfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pep Guardiola was once asked if he \u2013 like Roberto Mancini \u2013 held a \u2018double contract\u2019 at Manchester City<\/a> and bristled at the accusation.<\/p>\n

German outlet Der Spiegel published evidence in 2018 showing that Mancini\u2019s base salary of \u00a31.45m was doubled for advising a club in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

Mancini led City to their first Premier League title in 2012 after Abu Dhabi\u2019s ruling family bought the club in 2008, also winning the FA Cup in 2011.<\/p>\n

The Italian was asked about his so-called \u201cdouble contract\u201d at Italy\u2019s press conference Sunday<\/a> ahead of their Nations League game against Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a problem that concerns me,\u201d Mancini said. \u201cAnyhow, it\u2019s not something new, because every four or five years this comes up. Manchester City is not guilty and the fact of having a double contract isn\u2019t my problem but theirs, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guardiola bristled rather more than Mancini when asked if he was also in receipt of separate payments from Abu Dhabi by journalist Rob Harris, who\u2019s played a huge role in breaking the Man City FFP story open.<\/p>\n

In the wake of City securing an historic domestic treble in 2019, Harris asked: \u201cRoberto Mancini was discovered to have had separate payments from Abu Dhabi while he was manager. Have you ever had separate payments from Abu Dhabi while City manager?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know the question that you\u2019re asking to me?\u201d Guardiola replied. \u201cDo you know the question that you\u2019re asking me? That I receive money from another situation right now today.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, do you think I deserve to be asked this sort of question \u2013 what happened with Roberto I don\u2019t know \u2013 on the day we won the treble that I receive money from another situation? Oh my god. Are you accusing me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris responded: \u201cNo I asked the question some time ago and it\u2019s only relevant because it came up again this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, after City were found guilty by an independent commission on all charges of breaching financial fair play rules and face a huge punishment for their wrongdoing, Guardiola\u2019s squeaky clean reputation is under threat.<\/p>\n

The legendary boss, who left the club at the end of last season, has come out in support of his former club in the wake of the findings.<\/p>\n

And legendary Norwegian scout Bryan King has leapt to the defence of Guardiola, suggesting that because there\u2019s no evidence of his involvement in any financial irregularity at either Barcelona or Bayern Munich then the same will be true at Man City.<\/p>\n

King told Football Insider<\/a>: \u201cWhere was Pep Guardiola\u2019s money involvement in Barcelona and Bayern Munich?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won the Championship in Germany and the Championship in Spain, as well as the Champions League in Spain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas he influential in illegal money payments at those two clubs? Nothing\u2019s ever been mentioned and I don\u2019t suppose it will be mentioned because he wasn\u2019t involved in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows as a manager, a top manager, that if you\u2019re going to bring players to your football club, top, top players have got to join a club with top, top players.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the one thing that it costs to build a club like that is an awful lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re don\u2019t\u00a0quite\u00a0understand your point, Bryan, but then again you have already revealed a poor grasp of the financial fair play rules as you want Tottenham investigated<\/a> for spending \u00a3300m this summer when they\u2019re in debt over the new stadium which is literally how they\u2019re able to spend \u00a3300m.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Andy Burnham, the Man City cheats and \u00a320bn-worth of good faith<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola was once asked if he \u2013 like Roberto Mancini \u2013 held a \u2018double contract\u2019 at Manchester…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[448,59,399,50,19404,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-788642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-front-page","tag-gb","tag-manchester-city","tag-news","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}