Mourinho jokes he may not live to see final verdict in Man City financial case

Jose Mourinho has joked that he and Pep Guardiola may both be dead before Manchester City’s drawn-out legal dispute with the Premier League reaches a conclusion, after the club lodged an appeal against a guilty verdict on all financial charges brought against them.

“I think we will eventually get an ending, but we are both in our 60s and we’ll need to be lucky enough to still be around when the final verdict arrives,” Mourinho told Italy’s Corriere dello Sport. “There will be a verdict, then appeals, then more appeals.”

An independent commission found City guilty of all charges relating to breaches of Premier League financial regulations between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, as well as three out of four charges concerning a failure to cooperate with the investigation. The Premier League alleged that City relied on “sham” commercial agreements to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than £900 million over nearly a decade, resulting in inaccurate financial reporting and breaches of spending rules. City have denied any wrongdoing and submitted a formal appeal.

Mourinho managed Manchester United between 2016 and 2018, guiding them to a second-placed Premier League finish behind Guardiola’s City in the 2017-18 season — one of the campaigns under scrutiny in the case. “I would rather laugh about it,” he said when pressed on the matter.

The appeal process will be conducted in private, and it remains unclear whether any sanctions would be imposed before it is heard, or whether any punishment would take immediate effect.

On the pitch, City have been in imperious form, claiming maximum points from their opening five Premier League games to sit three points clear of defending champions Arsenal at the top of the table. Manager Enzo Maresca was seen smiling and relaxed as the squad returned to training following the international break, with a trip to Anfield to face Liverpool on Sunday representing arguably the sternest test of his tenure so far. Maresca was due to address the media on Friday for the first time since the guilty verdict was handed down.