Man City Verdict Leaves Football In ‘Period Of Deception’ – Pochettino

United States manager Mauricio Pochettino, formerly of Tottenham and Chelsea, has said football endured “a period of deception” after Manchester City were found guilty of most of the Premier League charges brought against them.

An independent panel found City guilty of a broad range of financial rule breaches. The Athletic reported on Friday that 114 of the 115 charges were upheld. Sanctions have not yet been announced, and City intend to appeal.

The charges cover the period from 2009-10 to 2017-18 and include accusations that City failed to co-operate with Premier League investigations between December 2018 and February 2023.

Pochettino managed three Premier League clubs during much of that time, spending 15 months at Southampton, five years at Tottenham and one season at Chelsea. The 54-year-old said no punishment can undo the damage already caused.

“Whatever punishment [they choose], it’s impossible to turn back time,” Pochettino said. “It’s done a lot of damage. Many clubs followed the rules and some didn’t.

“Maybe they thought that the punishment [wouldn’t come for a lot of years] – what are they going to do? An economic punishment? Docking points? It’s really hard.

“It is a huge sadness. We get into a situation where what got celebrated wasn’t that real, what seemed good maybe wasn’t so good, what didn’t look good maybe was good but couldn’t be good because of what happened.

“We went through something where sporting fairness didn’t exist. So, how do you repair everything that was damaged because of that, if it’s true all of the 114 rules that were broken, we’ve lived through a perioūd of deception.”