{"id":297017,"date":"2026-09-30T17:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/297017\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T17:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:56:08","slug":"pep-guardiola-man-city-backed-by-former-manager-after-guilty-verdicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/297017\/","title":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola: Man City backed by former manager after guilty verdicts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former manager Pep Guardiola has backed Manchester City<\/a>‘s owners and leadership and says he will “always” be behind the club after they were found guilty of all charges related to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.<\/p>\n

An independent commission found that City arranged “sham contracts”<\/a> with a number of commercial partners as part of a scheme to disguise secret funding of more than \u00a3830m.<\/p>\n

The league confirmed City have been found guilty of all charges related to breaches of financial rules between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, and all but one in relation to failure to co-operate with the investigation.<\/p>\n

The club continue to deny any wrongdoing and have until 2 October to submit an appeal.<\/p>\n

Guardiola took over as City manager in July 2016 before leaving last summer.<\/p>\n

“I want every single Manchester City<\/a> fan across the world to know I am here; more than ever,” he wrote in a social media post.<\/p>\n

“I am, always have been, always will, be behind my club, my owner, my chairman, Ferran [Soriano], the players, staff, [manager] Enzo [Maresca] and you, our unique supporters.<\/p>\n

“Let me be clear: we will get through this together.<\/p>\n

“I love you all.”<\/p>\n

During Guardiola’s decade in charge of City, he led the club to six Premier League titles – including a record four in a row from 2020-21 – as well as the Champions League, three FA Cups and five League Cups.<\/p>\n

Prior to his departure, Guardiola spoke<\/a> about the charges against City in November 2024 and said he “will be here” even if the club were relegated.<\/p>\n

City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in a statement<\/a> on Saturday that the club is still confident of proving its innocence, while on Tuesday chief executive Ferran Soriano said in a video message, external<\/a> to staff and players that “irrefutable evidence” had been “ignored” by the commission.<\/p>\n

The club, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, said they were “both disappointed and surprised” by the guilty verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former manager Pep Guardiola has backed Manchester City‘s owners and leadership and says he will “always” be behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-297017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}