After Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez refused to warm up in the Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich in September, City found the Argentinean guilty of five breaches of his contract and decided the maximum four week fine was appropriate.
However the PFA chose to step in and decided that City did not have valid reason for the size of the fine and reduced it to two weeks. This infuriated City and many in the world of football, showing that the PFA were undermining the club and their in-house decisions which surely should be their own business. It is thought that Tevez only refused to warm up and not refuse to play which is a different view to that of Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini, who came out after the game to express his disgust at Tevez’s attitude.
Tevez insists he only refused to warm up and his advisors have said that they believe that none of the five reasons given by City for upholding the charge of misconduct are relevent. The facts are still puzzling to get hold of and neither City nor Tevez seems to be honest in the situation that could rumble on for months.
City could also be in trouble after manager Roberto Mancini’s post-match comments; in which he claimed Tevez had refused to play; couldamount to defamation of character and that legal action against him could be forthcoming. That could just rub salt in the wounds after the player control is clearly dominating football and surely that is the only business in the world where that can happen.
The original fine was thought to be of around £1million, but would not really dent the Argentines bank balance; however it is still though he will not play again for Manchester City under Mancini. In his Champions League press conference ahead of tonight’s clash at Villarreal, the Italian boss did say that all it needed was an apology for Tevez and that it may not come to him leaving the club.
There will no doubt be interest in January for Tevez and the likes of Inter Milan and Corinthians are expected to be the lead runners for his signature. Tevez was on great form for Manchester City last season but caused a stir by demanding a transfer in the summer. When he did not leave after much speculation he was not longer first choice striker, with Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko above him the pecking order Tevez’s nose may have been put out of joint.
Surely the Tevez situation has proved that player power is on the rise and a player can now demand what contract they want, what bonuses they get, when they want to leave a club and apparently how much of a fine they should have. The PFA have the interest of the player as primary but this should not involve undermining the clubs and the way they want to run their business.
Written by Brad Pinard for Footballfancast.com
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we’re falling apart without him…. ta ta tev.
Tevez still taking bad advice from that shark Joorabchian means he’s outlived his usefulness to City. He’ll leave in January if someone comes in with a good offer, otherwise I hope the board are as good as their word and they let him rot in the reserves until the Summer.
He said, he said, blah ,blah, blah. Not warming up surely from the managers point is the same as refusing to play? How can he go on cold and maybe pull a hammy, or something. Tevez is part of our history now and has been replaced by a better player who is happy in Manchester.
The journalist here is making the mistake of being drawn into semantics , quite clearly you can not play unless you warm up , one leads to the other . There would of been no confusion on the bench if Carlos had just done as he was told , however his refusal to warm up when asked made him unavailable for the game . Hence Macini saying he refused to play .