Mauricio Pochettino Wants Answers Over Man City’s ‘Period of Deception’

The USMNT manager did not hold back with his assessment of the case.

Mauricio Pochettino battled against Man City during his time at Tottenham. | Omar Vega/Getty Images

USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino has questioned whether there is even a punishment severe enough to punish Manchester City’s “period of deception.”

City have been found guilty of 114 charges of financial misconduct between 2009 and 2018, raising plenty of questions about possible punishments that could range from fines and points deductions to transfer bans and potential expulsion from the Premier League.

Breaking rules is something Pochettino evidently takes seriously. It was just a few weeks ago that the former Tottenham Hotspur manager argued his side should retrospectively be awarded the 2016–17 Premier League title in response to charges against eventual winners Chelsea.

“What is the punishment that’s just?” he said in response to City’s case. “Because there are other clubs—Nottingham Forest, Everton—not with the same situations, different cases, but where rules were broken and they were punished with point deductions or economic sanctions and so on. It’s very difficult.

“It’s the astonishment you feel when a ruling comes out citing 114 rule violations. How? How did this happen? The most important thing is how things are set right, because it’s not just about who committed the violations, who broke the rules ... but what about the controls? Where were they? That’s what struck me most: Where were the controls?”

That control, or lack thereof, was a particularly sore spot for Pochettino, who recalled his Tottenham side’s inability to sign new players in the summer of 2018 and the winter of 2019 because all their investment was going on a new stadium.

“So if a club like us, Tottenham, who had been competing for titles, competing with the other teams up there, finishing in the top four every year, reaching a Champions League semifinal without having been able to sign anyone for 18 months because we had to comply with the rules the Premier League imposed on us—how could those controls have been so strict with us and so much less strict with some others?” Pochettino questioned.

“That’s why I say the whole thing is very strange. And that’s the problem: everything becomes very, very murky, and it’s very, very difficult to draw a conclusion.

“If it’s true that the 114 rules were broken, then we lived through a period of deception. So, whatever the punishment ends up being ... I don’t know. It’s impossible to go back. I don’t know if it’s impossible to go back, but I think a lot of damage has been done. Especially with the controls during the pandemic, because ultimately a lot of clubs followed the rules and others didn’t, perhaps thinking about what the punishment might be after so many years: ‘What’s going to happen? A financial penalty? Points deductions?’

“I don’t know. It’s very difficult, honestly.”

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The Impact of Man City’s Allegations on Tottenham

Pochettino knows things could have looked a lot different. | Julian Finney/Getty Images

There is an argument that no club has been harmed more than Pochettino’s old employers.

Before Pochettino arrived, Spurs were one position away from Champions League qualification in 2010–11, 2011–12 and 2012–13, with City taking one of the spots above them in the standings. Pochettino tasted that frustration himself in 2014–15, his first season in charge.

Sure, there are no trophies on the line here, but there is arguably something more important to the modern game: money.

Four extra years of Champions League income would be hugely significant, even if Spurs did not make much noise in the competition. The prize money is astronomical and that does not even consider the added sponsorship opportunities that come with being able to offer European action.

There is also the extra matter of player recruitment. Players have regularly cited a spot in the Champions League when explaining moves to many of Spurs’ fiercest rivals, but that opportunity was not available at Spurs in those seasons.

The list of players that opted to make England’s top flight their new home between 2010 and 2015 is staggering.

David De Gea, Juan Mata, Romelu Lukaku, Thibaut Courtois, Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Agüero, Eden Hazard, Santi Cazorla, Philippe Coutinho, Fernandinho, Mohamed Salah, Mesut Özil, Pedro—the list goes on. Each of those was lured to the Premier League by the promise of Champions League action that was simply not on the table at Spurs.

Signing any of those—just one—would have been a direction-altering move for Spurs, whose past decade could have looked significantly different had they not been repeatedly left staring up at a City side which, in the eyes of many, did not deserve their place.

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