the times | Friday July 31 2020 2GM 67
Sport
City director ‘lied
to CAS hearing’
between the airline and club. “I did not
transfer enough to you!” Pearce wrote,
according to Der Spiegel. “I should have
given you £91m so I only sent you
£88.5m. So I owe you £2.5m.”
Der Spiegel said that Etihad,
Baumgartner and Pearce did not
respond directly to requests for com-
ment, but City released a statement
strongly criticising the German news-
paper’s latest article.
“The questions and matters raised by
Der Spiegel appear to be a cynical
attempt to publicly re-litigate and
undermine a case that has been fully
adjudicated, after detailed proceedings
and due process, by the Court of Arbi-
tration for Sport,” City’s statement read.
“Manchester City’s policy remains
not to comment on out of context
materials purported to have been
criminally obtained from City Football
Group and Manchester City person-
nel.”
It is understood that City are now
looking at potential legal options
against Der Spiegel.
CAS released a 93-page summary
this week that showed why it had
thrown out Uefa’s case against City.
In that judgment, the court said that
it had “not been established that
[Pearce] was authorised to conclude
contracts on behalf of [City owner]
HHSM [His Highness Sheikh Man-
sour] and or [City’s owners] ADUG
[Abu Dhabi United Group].
Although City’s Champions League
ban was overturned, they were fined
£9 million for failing to co-operate with
investigators.Paul Hirst
Chelsea managers compared
Points
Possession
Goals
Goals conceded
Shots on target
Shots on target faced
Passes
Passing accuracy
Average age of starting XI
1.9
63.4%
1.7
1
5.2
3.3
659.8
87.6%
27y 278d
1.7
60.6%
1.8
1.4
5.8
3.1
611.7
85.2%
26y 26d
Maurizio Sarri
(2018-19)Frank Lampard
(2019-20)Average per game
into wine. Then Derby came up. I called
Mel Morris [Derby’s owner] but he was
not keen. He said he had no experience.
I persuaded him to meet Frank. After
an hour together Mel rang me and said
he was giving him the job. Frank didn’t
know I’d done that, but he’d blown Mel
away.”
Why was he so convinced that
Lampard could transfer playing ability
to management? “Frank is such an
intelligent guy. Go to one of those
awards dinners and watch him stand up
and talk for 45 minutes without any
notes. He knows the game.”
While lauding his nephew, Redknapp
is nevertheless frustrated at the way the
modern game is over-analysed.
“People kid themselves about super
coaches,” he adds. “It’s a load of cob-
blers. To be a great manager you need
great players. Manchester City were
going nowhere until Sheikh Mansour
arrived. Klopp signed the best goal-
keeper and centre half in the world,
Frank needs two or three more and
Chelsea will be challenging.”when he clashed with Klopp at Liver-
pool this month. In sepia days Ron
Greenwood, then West Ham’s manag-
er, told Lampard’s father, Frank Sr, he
was being loaned to Torquay United.
“Managers weren’t your mates back
then and we called him Mr Green-
wood,” Redknapp says. “But Frank said,
‘I don’t want to go to Torquay, tell me
what’s wrong with me and I’ll put it
right.’ So Ron says, ‘Well, you’re not
quick enough.’ He was right too. He was
an intelligent footballer but it was like
he was running through quicksand.”
His response was to go home and get
a set of running spikes. He trained in
them every day. And he played 20 years
at left back for West Ham, the best
trainer I’d ever seen until young Frank
came along.”
Redknapp concedes that he did give
Lampard a leg up to several rungs
above the normal starting point for
novice managers. First he rang Marcus
Evans, Ipswich Town’s owner, in 2018.
“He wanted to take him but the budget
was not great and you can’t turn waterFA C u p f i n a l
Arsenal v Chelsea
Tomorrow
Kick-off: 5.30pmTV: BBC One, BT Sport
Radio: talkSPORTMICHAEL STEELE/GETTY IMAGES; IMAGO/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKOnly one positive test
from Scottish clubs
There was only one positive Covid-19
test result in Scottish football last
week, the game’s Joint Response
Group has confirmed.
St Mirren had recorded seven
positive cases from their private
contractors but six of the affected
backroom staff proved negative when
they were tested again by the NHS. It
means that one positive test has been
recorded from July 20 to 26 from the
715 tests carried out on players and
staff at Scottish Premiership clubs.‘Small hope’ that Mbappé
will be fit to face Atalanta
The Paris Saint-Germain coach
Thomas Tuchel says there is a “very
small” hope striker Kylian Mbappé
will recover from injury in time to
face Atalanta in the Champions
League quarter-finals on August 12.
Mbappé, 21, injured his ankle
against Saint-Étienne in the French
Cup final last week. Asked if there
was any hope Mbappé could play
against Atalanta, Tuchel said: “Yes,
always, but it will be a very, very small
one, that’s clear.”the left. Guardiola also considers Aké a
strong addition to his squad because
of the 25-year-old’s versatility, as he
is capable of playing at left back,
where City have been weakest.
An announcement on the Aké
deal, worth £40 million with
£1 million in add-ons, is not be-
lieved to be imminent as the
final details on personal terms
are yet to be completed.
Aké, right, has been one
of the standout individuals
in Eddie Howe’s Bourne-
mouth team since joining the
club from Chelsea in 2016, initially
on loan. Strong, quick and
confident on the ball, he
became Bournemouth’s
record signing when heVersatile Aké can play at
left back or centre back
joined permanently the following sum-
mer in a £20 million deal. Having repre-
sented Holland at every age group from
under-15 upwards he made his full
international debut against Moroc-
co in 2017 and has 13 caps.
Aké’s arrival would cast
further doubt on John Stones’s
future after Guardiola admit-
ted that the England centre
back, 26, could leave City
this summer. Nicolás Ota-
mendi, who is 32 and was
used more sporadically last
season, also faces an uncer-
tain future with the club.
Begiristain spoke earlier
this week about the need
for City to finalise deals
early in what could be-
come a complicated
transfer window. City
have already secured a
£20.9 million deal with Valencia
for Torres, the Spain Under-21
winger.A special
place
to start
100 milesFRANCE
SPAIN
Antiguo
Madrid
Mikel Arteta began his
footballing life playing
for Antiguoko the most
famous youth team in
the Basque country,
which is based in the
city of San Sebastián.
The young Arteta is
pictured below with
one of the club’s
coaches where he is
still remembered,
alongside the club’s
Wall of Fame and,
below with the former
Liverpool, Real Madrid
and Spain midfelder
Xabi Alonso, with
whom he formed a
lifelong friendship
having played together
for many years at the
club. At the age of 15
Arteta moved on to
join Barcelona’s famed
La Masia academy and
played for the club at
C and B level, right,
without breaking into
the first team.The German newspaper Der Spiegel
claimed yesterday that it had evidence
showing that Manchester City lied to
the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)
during the recent hearing over their
Champions League ban.
City swiftly denied the allegations
and accused Der Spiegel of conducting a
“cynical” campaign designed to under-
mine their recent victory over Uefa.
Two weeks ago, CAS overturned the
two-year Champions League ban that
Uefa had imposed on City over sup-
posed breaches of Financial Fair Play
(FFP) rules.
Uefa’s investigation against City was
based in part on emails obtained by
Football Leaks, which were then
published in Der Spiegel. Those emails
claimed that City inflated sponsorship
revenues so that they complied with
FFP rules.
The German newspaper yesterday
published new emails which were not
used as evidence at CAS. Der Spiegel
claims that they show City lied during
the hearing. When club director Simon
Pearce was asked at CAS whether he
had ever arranged payments to City’s
sponsor, Etihad, he replied, according to
CAS documents: “Absolutely, categori-
cally, no.”
Der Spiegel said a new email from the
Football Leaks database showed other-
wise. It claims the email, dated Decem-
ber 12, 2013, was written by Pearce to
Peter Baumgartner, then Etihad’s chief
operating officer, and contained a
breakdown of the sponsorship dealcontinued from back
Aké is believed to be close to
agreeing personal terms with City