Pep Guardiola has refuted suggestions by UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin that he was disrespectful to European football’s governing body for not being present at this week’s VAR summit.
His words, “For me it’s not only a lack of respect for [UEFA’s chief refereeing officer] Roberto Rosetti’s team and the UEFA organisation, but the influence of coaches is huge and if they complain about being refereed they should at least come and see what the experts say about the use of VAR,”
“Now they do not have any excuses, especially the ones that did not even come.”
“I respect a lot the UEFA president but I don’t agree with what he said, I am sorry,” he told a news conference ahead of Sunday’s home match against Chelsea.
“Brian Kidd was there. He travelled, he was in the meeting and I have on my table the report about the VAR.
“The is problem is on Wednesday we had a game and it’s more important for me to be with my players. On Monday we had a training session and Tuesday we had a training session.
“I would have travelled. I had the tickets. But the Premier League decided we had to play the game against Everton in between Arsenal and Chelsea, so I could not travel.
“Someone went there and we were involved. I’m not talking about Mr Ceferin saying, in that case, that Manchester City was not in that position.”
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