SOCCER:ROBERTO MANCINI'S introductory press conference as Manchester City manager degenerated into a major embarrassment for his new employers last night when the Italian exposed an apparent cover-up surrounding the events leading to his appointment and forced the chief executive, Garry Cook, to come clean about the covert operation to appoint him behind Mark Hughes's back.
Mancini’s admission that he had met the club’s owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak in London early this month undermined a statement from Cook in which he indicated talks with Hughes’s replacement had not begun until City lost 3-0 at Tottenham Hotspur last Wednesday.
“We negotiated (with Mancini) on Thursday and finalised his agreement on Friday,” Cook said. “He is just the manager we need to take us to the next level. But he was not in the stadium on Saturday, as has been falsely reported.”
Hughes was sacked after Saturday’s 4-3 defeat of Sunderland, with Mancini waiting in place at a hotel in Manchester, having already organised for his scouts to watch the team’s next opponents, Stoke City, play at Aston Villa.
“They called me after the Tottenham game, but two weeks before that I met the chairman,” Mancini said. “That was our first contact. I met the owner as well. We met to discuss this situation, to speak on football. He (Khaldoon) wanted to know what I felt about Manchester City.”
Mancini went on to claim the appointment was to “speak in general on football” and argued it was acceptable for managers to meet chief executives of rival clubs. Asked what the reaction would have been in Italy if he had met Milan president Silvio Berlusconi when he was managing Internazionale, he said it was “normal”.
The damage, however, had been done. Having initially refused to answer questions, Cook found himself under increasingly hostile fire and eventually admitted that talks with Mancini started after City’s 1-1 draw with Hull City on November 28th.
“The managerial position was discussed in general terms at that meeting. After the Spurs game, there were further discussions on a more serious level.”
Cook refused to reply when it was put to him that Hughes had been treated with a lack of respect, but Mancini addressed the issue.
“This is our job. I am sorry for Mark. But when you start these jobs, this kind of situation is always possible. I was at Inter for four seasons and won seven trophies and then they sacked me. It’s football.”
In his statement, Cook insisted the club had been “nothing but transparent with Mark throughout his tenure and had communicated with him regularly over the last several weeks.”
He added: “The decision to look at managerial options was taken three weeks ago after the Hull game. At the end of last season we set a target of a sixth-place finish, but following the accelerated player acquisition activity in the summer the new target that the playing staff agreed with the board was 70 points. The trajectory of recent results was below this requirement and the board felt there was no evidence that the situation would fundamentally change.”
Hughes’s sympathisers can point out the club will have 35 points by the midway point of the season if they win their next two games against Stoke and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Cook said there was “no player rebellion”, but Craig Bellamy is so unhappy he is considering making a transfer request.
Sheikh Mansour would have liked Mancini’s response to being asked for his objectives over his three-and-a-half-year contract. “My first target is to finish in the top four,” he said. “Then, next season, we want to win the Premier League.”
His unveiling, however, was dominated by the questions about the treatment of Hughes. The Welshman had to take charge of the team on Saturday knowing his replacement had already been appointed. The delay, Cook explained, was because Khaldoon had to “jump on a plane – he was adamant not to do it by telephone, call, fax, text, email. He wanted to do it in person.”
