Man City chairman reveals Guardiola threatened to quit 'a hundred times' before final exit

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has revealed that Pep Guardiola threatened to leave the club roughly a hundred times during his ten-year tenure, long before his actual exit was confirmed. Speaking to club media, Al Mubarak described his role as something closer to a therapist than a chairman when it came to managing the Catalan coach through difficult periods.

“Over these years we have become close friends,” Al Mubarak said. “And I will say, and I don’t know if he will admit it, but I consider myself his psychiatrist. In the downs, he must have quit 100 times over these ten years, just so you know, just for the record.”

Al Mubarak drew on the fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf to explain how he learned to distinguish between Guardiola’s genuine moments of doubt and the point at which his desire to leave became real. “Whenever he quits or whenever he thinks it’s time, I will always convince him to come back, until the time where I know it’s actually the real time,” he said. “There was always going to be one moment where it was going to be real.”

The chairman also noted that Guardiola never expected to remain at the Etihad beyond four years, let alone the full decade he ultimately served. “He never thought he would stay more than four years, then more than five years. So, in his mind, even year four and five it was always ‘okay, how much more time?’”

Guardiola’s exit brings the curtain down on one of the most decorated managerial stints in English football history. City won 20 trophies during his tenure, establishing themselves as the dominant force in the Premier League era and reaching the summit of European football with the 2023 Champions League title.

Enzo Maresca is set to take charge as City look to sustain the standards Guardiola set across a transformative decade at the club.