City claim Tevez defied order

CARLOS TEVEZ faces further disciplinary action from Manchester City after he flew to Argentina and the club claimed that this defied a clear order he was given to stay and work on his match fitness.

While Tevez and his representatives claim there was no such directive, the striker will be written to for his observations regarding why he decided to fly to his homeland. An answer is required by Friday and a meeting between the player and City officials is to be held on Monday to decide what action will be taken.

Gordon Taylor, the Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive who fought successfully to make City halve the four-week fine imposed on Tevez, for September’s incident at Bayern Munich, said: “To say the least, I am very disappointed and extremely concerned.

“To go out to Argentina when – as I have been informed – he was clearly told not to because they (City) needed to work on his fitness, and to blatantly ignore that instruction starts to affect any chance of any reconciliation.

“The whole relationship between clubs and players is one where there has to be clear understanding of what is to be expected and what is not expected. From that point of view, he is making it virtually impossible to have a reconciliation and leaving himself very vulnerable to strong action by the club.”

“If he is determined to leave the club, which may well be apparent, then his money value is being diminished by his actions and can affect another club’s interest.

“As such, he could be held responsible for that, so it is getting to be a situation that I am not at all happy about.

“Neither are the club of course, and it is one that we will have to deal with.”

Tevez was still in Argentina last night and it was unclear when he may return. His camp claim he was not told he should stay at the club during the international break. Their view is that on Monday the 27-year-old repeatedly attempted to contact the manager, Roberto Mancini, but that the Italian did not respond.

It is claimed there was an “ambiguous” response by a City coach that day to Tevez’s request for permission to return home and that when he did land in Buenos Aires, Mancini again was uncontactable when the striker repeatedly attempted to call and text him again.

A spokesman for Tevez said: “He tried countless times to speak to Roberto Mancini.

“He was told it was Mancini’s decision as to whether or not he could go and left numerous voice messages and texts on Mancini’s phone.

“He didn’t receive a response at all. He then flew to Argentina and tried to speak to Mancini again yesterday, leaving messages and texts.

“As of this moment we’ve had no response.”

This is disputed by the club. Its position is that Mancini was on a break so did not respond, and that this is immaterial as the Argentinian was expressly informed by another staff member that he could not fly home.

The spokesman was not prepared to comment on when Tevez is likely to return from South America, and City are not yet able to say what punishment the player may face.