Remember a couple years ago when Yaya Touré was considering leaving Manchester City because they didn’t bake him a birthday cake It was an entirely ridiculous story but it managed to fuel nearly a full summer’s worth of transfer rumors. It might’ve been the story of the summer if, you know, there wasn’t a World Cup going on. It even resurfaced a year later It was a story that just refused to die.
It would be easy to be seduced by the headline and laugh off the whole thing as yet another pratfall in the eternal churn of football news. It helps distract from the fact that it was a manufactured controversy, fed to the sporting media machine by an agent that never seems to hit above the belt.
Whenever there’s a transfer rumor or some other weird story surrounding Touré, you can be certain that his agent, Dimitri Seluk, is behind it. Now the high-powered Russian negotiator is at the center of another controversy— and his client is once again caught in the middle.
Touré was left out of Manchester City’s 25-man Champions League squad when it was announced a few weeks ago, a move that, while not totally out of left field considering his age, was still somewhat surprising. Considering some of Pep Guardiola’s other moves in the squad— like sending Joe Hart out on loan to Torino— it seemed like the kind of housecleaning every new manager does in their first season at a club.
Seluk, however, wasn’t having it. If he wouldn’t abide the lack of birthday cake, you could be damned sure he wouldn’t stand for this.
When the Champions League squad was announced, Seluk gave an interview saying that if City fail to win the Champions League, Guardiola will be obliged to personally apologize to Touré.
”If he wins the Champions League for City this season then I will travel to England and I will say on television that Pep Guardiola is the best manager in the world. But if City don’t win the Champions League then I hope that Pep has got the balls to say that he was wrong to humiliate a great player like Yaya.”
You couldn’t say for sure, but it’s not difficult to imagine Manuel Pellegrini letting that comment go. Say what you will about him, but the previous City manager was known for not letting this sort of thing distract him.
Pep, on the other hand, doesn’t back down from a fight.
The former Barcelona manager addressed Seluk’s comments in a presss conference ahead of City’s upcoming League Cup match against Swansea. Guardiola said that until Seluk retracts his statement, Touré will not play.
”He must apologise to his team-mates, to the club. If he doesn’t, he won’t play. It was difficult to leave him out of the Champions League squad but [the] day after, his [agent] went to the media. He has not had the courage to call me. From that moment he was out. […] 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. If he has a problem call the club, and they can talk, until he speaks, Yaya is not going to play.”