Jamie Carragher has denied being a hypocrite over the Manchester City scandal after comments in which he said he would 'rather cheat and win' resurfaced online. The former Liverpool defender has been prominent in coverage of Manchester City being found guilty by an independent commission of 114 Premier League charges and has suggested the club should be seriously punished should their appeal fail.
Resurfaced comments spark debate
Some fans have reminded Carragher of comments he made on the Diary of CEO podcast in 2022, where he said: "For me when I played, I'd rather cheat and win." The clip was picked up by talkSPORT, with Jim White and Simon Jordan debating the claim. The former Crystal Palace chairman accused the Sky Sports pundit of hypocrisy.
Carragher has now responded on social media, arguing that his comments were about on-pitch deception only. He wrote: "No it's not hypocritical. I'm talking about my striker diving for a penalty, me stopping a ball going over the line with my hand! I'm not talking about 900M in fake sponsorship over a number of years."
Jordan weighs in on the row
Discussing the viral clip, Jordan said: "He'll feel that perhaps he shouldn't have said that because it wasn't totally necessary for Jamie to have said that. I actually spoke to Jamie over the weekend because I see Piers having a go at him on social media and told him not to rise to it.
"I think it doesn't alter the fact that what he's saying about Man City has resonance. Most people in life are hypocrites, they are, they just might not admit it. And he's been caught in a hypocritical moment where he's been a hypocrite."
Jordan added: "That doesn't alter the veracity or the efficacy of what he's saying. All of us are being constantly put in the situation where we have to talk about Manchester City because it's constantly part of the media cycle. So you've got all these people who are trying to top one another by saying the most extreme thing. It's not about being right sometimes, it's about being first and that's a tragedy of the news cycles that we live in.
"Notwithstanding that, Jamie's caught himself in a moment where he's said something and it will be interesting to see how he finds his way out of that if indeed he's challenged by it because they'll take the micky out of him on Sky for it, won't they? But I don't think it alters what he's saying about Man City just because he's being a hypocrite, it doesn't mean that necessarily his point of view about Man City being sanctioned and brought to book and the consequences of their behaviour needing to be visited on them in a timely fashion."
