Manchester City chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak has stated that rivals of their club are jealous of their success in recent times.
Manchester City became the first club in England to win a domestic treble which has come under heavy criticisms due to the spending nature of the club.
However, Al Mubarak feels different about that because according to him, the Premier champions do not have a player in the top 10 most expensive signings. English rivals Manchester United have two – £89m Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku, bought for an initial £75m – and Liverpool one in £75m Virgil van Dijk.
“With success, there is a certain level of jealousy, envy, whatever you call it. That’s part of the game,” said Mubarak.
“It’s not easy for our competition, we know that. But the reality is, we didn’t buy the most expensive player in the Premier League [Pogba], we didn’t buy the most expensive goalkeeper [Kepa Arrizabalaga], we didn’t buy the most expensive midfielder, we didn’t buy the most expensive striker [Lukaku].
“People make decisions, they’ve got to live by them. This is a well-run club.”
Mubarak also reacted to the comments from La Liga president Javier Tebas, who said recently complained about the club being backed by the Abu Dhabi United Group, and Paris St-Germain, owned by Qatar Sports Investments, were the “playthings of a state”. Javier requests that they should be kicked out of the Champions League over their spending powers and methods.
“I think there’s something deeply wrong in bringing ethnicity into the conversation,” Mubarak said of the comments.
“This is just ugly, the way he is combining teams because of ethnicity. I find that very disturbing, to be honest.”
City feel Javier didn’t consider how much Spanish giants Real Madrid spent during their ‘galactico’ era, when they signed Portugal forward Luis Figo, France midfielder Zinedine Zidane, Brazil striker Ronaldo and England captain David Beckham in successive summers from 2000.
“He [Tebas] talks about how we distorted the market,” Mubarak added.
He continued:
“I don’t think this is just an attack on Manchester City, it’s against this league. I hope people start seeing that. I know people don’t want to defend Manchester City – but for God’s sake start defending this league.
“There are four Premier League teams in the two European finals. We have the best league in the world, the most commercial league and the most successful clubs in terms of global presence. That bothers a lot of people in many places.”