Enzo Maresca came out in defense of Manchester City’s ownership on Friday, despite the club being found guilty of breaking the Premier League’s financial rules in the biggest scandal in the competition’s history.<\/p>\n
The manager Maresca said he had complete trust in City’s hierarchy, and dismissed suggestions the club’s unprecedented dominance of English soccer had been tainted by the bombshell verdict that it had artificially inflated its revenue by more than $1 billion to help sign some of soccer\u2019s biggest stars.<\/p>\n
“I completely trust the club in this moment, in the future, always,” Maresca said in his first news conference since the findings of an independent panel were published last week.<\/p>\n
“The reason why I joined this club is because I completely trust 100% the owner, the CEO, the sports director, all the organization, so I don\u2019t have any doubt about that.”<\/p>\n
Enzo Maresca, manager of Manchester City, spoke publicly about Man City’s guilty verdict on Friday. (Photo by Tom Flathers\/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Maresca was speaking ahead of City’s Premier League match with Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly the focus was on the verdict, which found the United Arab Emirates-backed team committed almost all of the 115-plus violations it was accused of during a period in which City changed the landscape of the world\u2019s most popular soccer league.<\/p>\n City has always denied the charges and has lodged an appeal.<\/p>\n “I would like to speak about this situation when we\u2019re going to win the appeal,” Maresca said.<\/p>\n Asked if the verdict tarnished City’s success over more than a decade of dominance, Maresca replied, “Absolutely not.”<\/p>\n Maresca was hired at the end of last season when former manager Pep Guardiola stepped down after a trophy-laden 10-year tenure.<\/p>\n He had previously worked as Guardiola’s assistant during the 2023 treble-winning season.<\/p>\n Erling Haaland Wants Manchester City Fans To Be United Amid Guilty Verdict<\/p>\n Mancini Brushes Off Man City Financial Scandal: \u2018Not a Problem That Concerns Me\u2019<\/p>\n Man City Lodges ‘Comprehensive’ Appeal After Financial Scandal Guilty Verdict<\/p>\n Guardiola Standing ‘Behind My Club’ Manchester City Amid Bombshell Charges<\/p>\n Expulsion? Sanctions? What’s Next For EPL’s Manchester City After Verdict<\/p>\n Asked if he still would have taken the job had the verdict come out before he became manager, Maresca replied, “100%.”<\/p>\n “I know the organization from years ago and I know how serious they are. I know that they do the right things,” he said.<\/p>\n “I trust the club because I trust the people, and this is also the reason why I joined the club. And then there is not another club in the world where I would like to be, so I\u2019m very happy to be here.”<\/p>\n Maresca’s immediate job is to focus the players’ minds ahead of the trip to Anfield.<\/p>\n “We completely understand the seriousness of the situation. I\u2019m not saying that we don\u2019t understand that. We understand, the players understand. But it\u2019s our duty, our job, to try to control the noise,” he said. “<\/p>\n “For me and for the players, we can control just the pitch side, the field side. So we are focused on that, and this is what we can do and we can control.”<\/p>\n Bayern Munich coach Vincent Kompany, who played for City from 2012-19, has offered guarded support for the club’s achievements at the time while also distancing himself from the controversy.<\/p>\n Kompany said Friday he was “100% focused” on Bayern and that didn’t leave him time “to dwell on other things.”<\/p>\n “But for me, it\u2019s actually quite simple \u2013 I played there for 11 years, and I stand fully behind what we achieved on the field and the feeling we shared as a group of players during that time.” he said. “Everything else, I have to be honest, it feels a bit far removed from my reality at the moment.”<\/p>\n Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Enzo Maresca came out in defense of Manchester City’s ownership on Friday, despite the club being found guilty of breaking the Premier League’s financial rules in the biggest scandal in the competition’s history. The manager Maresca said he had complete trust in City’s hierarchy, and dismissed suggestions the club’s unprecedented dominance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7435","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\/7435","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=7435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}