Jurgen Klopp has broken his silence on Manchester City's guilty verdict, insisting his respect for Pep Guardiola remains intact despite the club's financial breaches.
The FA Cup holders were found to have engaged in an almost £1billion scheme to either inflate revenues or reduce costs through a series of 'sham' arrangements in order to avoid breaching league and UEFA financial regulations.
Klopp's admiration for Guardiola
The eight-time Premier League champions face severe sanctions, although City remain defiant and immediately declared their intention to appeal. Klopp and Guardiola went toe-to-toe as City and Liverpool engaged in a rivalry that spanned at least half a decade, with the former Barcelona boss ultimately emerging as the victor in terms of trophies won over that period.
Despite having missed out on silverware as a consequence of the rules City have been accused of breaking, Klopp bears no ill-will to his one-time rival.
Reaction to the verdict
Klopp reacted to Manchester City's guilty verdict for the first time during Germany's preview press conference on Wednesday ahead of a Nations League tie with Serbia. He said: 'I haven't given it much thought but of course I've seen it. I also know what I said about it – that if there's ever a parade, I'll be there and so on. It doesn't feel like that anymore.'
'My respect for Pep Guardiola and the football played at City during the time we played each other – the way they played back then, the way they brought football to life on the pitch and what an opponent they were for us at the very highest level is far too great for me to be able to say anything now. Should any sanctions be imposed, I naturally have nothing to do with it anyway, and that's why I'm waiting to see how things pan out.'
Waiting for the appeal
'But when you're talking about legal proceedings that have been going on for so long now, you can well imagine… I assume there will be an appeal or something like that? That will take ages again.'
'So I'm a long way from preparing myself for it in any way and I don't have any feelings about it. It's not as if I need that right now, just so I can say 'I've been English champion a few more times'. I'm completely fine with what's happened and what we've achieved.'
'We battled it out on the pitch, and I can't say anything about the rest of it because I don't know exactly what it's all about. To be honest, I'm not particularly interested in it either.'
