Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says his team deserve an apology after the club successfully overturned their ban from European club competitions.
On Monday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) cleared City of committing “serious breaches” of Financial Fair Play regulations between 2012 and 2016.
On Tuesday Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho called it a “disgraceful decision”.
“What we have done is right. Jose and all the managers should know that we were damaged,” said Guardiola.
“We should be apologised (to).
“[I’m] incredibly happy for the decision, which shows what all the people said about the club was not true and to defend on the pitch what we won on the pitch..
“Like I said many times, if we did something wrong we would accept the decision of Uefa and Cas because we did something wrong. We can defend ourselves. We have the right to defend ourselves when we believe what we have done is correct.”
Uefa had issued Man City with a two-year ban in February.
But Cas cleared City of “disguising equity funds as sponsorship contributions” and cut the club’s fine from 30m euros (£26.9m) to 10m euros (£9m).
In this year’s Champions League, City face Real Madrid in their last-16 second leg at Etihad Stadium on 7 August. They lead 2-1 from the first leg and will face Juventus or Lyon if they progress.
When asked about his future with last season’s Premier League champions, Guardiola said he was “happy” but added “now is not the time” to discuss a new contract. His current deal runs until the end of the 2020-21 season.
“We have made a step forward in 10 years. We invested a lot of money, like a lot of clubs. We did it the right way. We have not been banned because we followed the FFP rules. If we hadn’t we would have been banned,” Guardiola added.
“We showed it was not true. That’s why people have to be happy or should at least accept it.
“I would love to say, ‘look in our eyes and say something face to face and go out onto the pitch and play as rivals and after if you beat us, we will shake hands and congratulate you’.”
Reaction from around the Premier League
The decision to allow City to play in Europe next season means it is normal service in terms of qualification for the Champions League and Europa League from the English top flight.
The top four sides will qualify for the Champions League, while fifth and sixth place will progress into the Europa League.
Had the ban remained in place, with City now guaranteed a top-four domestic finish, the team finishing fifth would have qualified for the Champions League and the seventh-placed team would have got a Europa League spot.
Get real time update about this post categories directly on your device, subscribe now.
