United States coach Mauricio Pochettino expressed sadness at an apparent failure of “sporting justice” in his response to reports that Manchester City has been found guilty of almost all of the 115 charges leveled against the club for alleged financial breaches.<\/p>\n
The alleged rule-breaking by City took place between 2009-18, during which period Pochettino was manager of Tottenham and turned the London team into a challenger for titles in English soccer despite operating on a relatively small budget.<\/p>\n
The Premier League has yet to officially confirm the verdict that, according to several media outlets, has been passed down by an independent commission following a long-running case.<\/p>\n
Mauricio Pochettino was Tottenham’s manager from 2014 through 2019, while the alleged Manchester City violations occurred between 2009 and 2018. \u00a0(Photo by Ian KINGTON \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n “If it\u2019s true that the 114 rules were broken, then we lived through a period of deception,” said Pochettino, speaking Monday \u2014 a day before the U.S. men\u2019s team plays Chile in a friendly match.<\/p>\n “So, whatever the punishment ends up being \u2026 I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s impossible to go back. I think a lot of damage has been done.”<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Pochettino called for Chelsea to be stripped of the 2016-17 Premier League title for a total of 74 breaches of Football Association regulations covering agents, working with intermediaries and third-party investment in players. Chelsea\u2019s punishment, on appeal, was a fine of 10 million pounds ($13.4 million) and a suspended two-window transfer ban.<\/p>\n Chelsea won the 2016-17 Premier League by a seven-point margin over Tottenham, which finished third in the 2017-18 season when City was champion. During this time, Tottenham was working under a far tighter budget than its title rivals in England yet still reached the Champions League final in 2019.<\/p>\n Pochettino, who was at Spurs from 2014-19, said that “ultimately a lot of clubs followed the rules and others didn\u2019t.”<\/p>\n “What\u2019s going to happen \u2014 a financial penalty? Points deductions? I don\u2019t know,” he said. “It\u2019s very difficult, honestly.<\/p>\n Prodigy. Next Big Thing. USA’s Cavan Sullivan Is Just Focused On Playing.<\/p>\n USMNT Star Chris Richards On Alabama, SEC Fans And The Magic Of Wembley<\/p>\n Women’s World Cup Forces NWSL To Start Season Earlier In 2027<\/p>\n “It\u2019s sad. It\u2019s deeply sad. Because, in the end, we\u2019ve entered into a situation where what was celebrated wasn\u2019t really what we thought it was. What seemed so good maybe wasn\u2019t so good. And what didn\u2019t seem good maybe actually was good, but it couldn\u2019t be seen as good because the other \u2018good\u2019 was achieved by breaking the rules. So, ultimately, we\u2019ve lived through a period where sporting justice didn\u2019t exist.”<\/p>\n City has always denied wrongdoing and its chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, continued to protest the club’s innocence on Saturday, a day after reports said a verdict had been reached.<\/p>\n Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BROWSE BY United States coach Mauricio Pochettino expressed sadness at an apparent failure of “sporting justice” in his response to reports that Manchester City has been found guilty of almost all of the 115 charges leveled against the club for alleged financial breaches. The alleged rule-breaking by City took place between 2009-18, during which period […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}