Guardiola demands apology from Yaya Toure's agent
Pep Guardiola has hit back at Yaya Toure's agent Dmitri Seluk after the France-based agent had criticized the Catalan boss for excluding his client from City's Champions League squad. Guardiola made it clear that the player will not play until there is an apology issued to the club by his agent.
Many thought Yaya Toure's time as a Manchester City player had come to an end once the club announced Pep Guardiola's appointment in early January. The pair had a frosty relationship while at Barcelona which had prompted Toure to move to City in the summer of 2010. It was not a surprise when Guardiola excluded the 33-year old's name from City's Champion League squad. However, his agent Dmitri Seluk launched a scathing on the ex-Bayern Munich coach saying, “If City don’t win the Champions League, then I hope that Pep has got the guts to say that he was wrong to humiliate a great player like Yaya.”
On Tuesday, Guardiola had replied in equally venomous fashion stating that the moment Toure's agent criticized him, the Ivorian was out of the team.
"It was so difficult for me to put him out in the Champions League," Pep told the media. "So difficult. I know him, I know he’s a good, good guy, but it was difficult for me as well to put Aleix Garcia out, [they are] the only two players that are out, because the list is the list.Â
"But the day after his agent spoke. In that moment Yaya is out. Unless Mr Dmitri Seluk comes back in the press conference, or his friends in the media, he has the courage to call me, or go to the media and say he apologises to Manchester City, the first one, the second one is his team-mates and after the trainer.”
Guardiola was furious about the way modern players fail to keep their agents in check before making comments about the managers in the media.
"When that happens Yaya will be part of the group and he will have the same chance to play all the games. Because I cannot accept, as a coach, every agent when his player doesn’t play goes to the media and speak and speak and speak. I know how Dmitri Seluk loves Yaya Toure, if he loves me, show me and apologise to Manchester City what he did in the ,” he added.
“I cannot imagine in my period when I was a football player, my manager going to the media and speaking against Johan Cruyff, about this and about that. Maybe it’s a new era now, the new period changing, but I’m an old guy. I am old generation, and old generation agents have to make his players his job and trainers his job, and today the agents believe they are more than they are,” reported Goal.com. Â
Pep made it clear that Toure will not be playing until there is an official apology issued by his agent.
“If he[Dmitri Seluk] has a problem, call Txiki Begiristain, the club, and they can talk, until he doesn’t speak, Yaya is not going to play," Pep said.