The president of English club Manchester City, Khaldoon al-Mubarak lamented on Monday that accusations of breaching financial regulations against his club cast a shadow over the league, FA Cup and Champions League treble achieved this year. At the cost of a resounding end to the season, just after the Premier League formalized 115 charges of financial breaches between 2009 and 2018 against the club, City matched a performance achieved only by their arch-rivals and neighbors United, by 1999.
“I will give you my vision”
In the first part of the river interview he gives to the club’s website at the end of each season, the manager did not want to comment on what his club is accused of, promising to have this “conversation” when the procedure will come to an end. “I will give you my vision in all honesty, I promise you. I have a very clear-cut opinion but unfortunately I have to restrain myself today,” he explained.
“It’s very frustrating because it takes away from so much of the huge work that is done within the club and which is not just about what happens on the pitch. (On) the pitch, what these players have achieved this year , this hat-trick, it’s incredible,” he said. “I hope people judge them on what they do on the field, in every competition they are in, because that’s the reality,” said the Emirati businessman.
With five championship titles over the last six years, the proof is made, believes the president of the Citizens, that the club is “very well managed”. “We could spend half an hour, right now, where I will give you the amounts of net expenditure (in transfers, purchases less sales) for the last season, for the last three seasons, for the last five seasons, over the last ten seasons (…) and compare us to our competitors and yet people swing at us ‘you are the biggest spender’, ‘you have the biggest workforce'”, he lamented. “I would like people to take the time to get the facts before commenting,” al-Mubarak concluded.