We all know Yaya Touré likes to speak his mind, and now that he’s on his way out of Manchester City after a final year of sitting around, not doing much, he decided it was time to say what he really thought.
Using France Football as his platform, the Ivorian spoke about Pep Guardiola at length, especially about the Spaniard’s apparent reluctance to use him even when his stats were up there with some of the better players currently present at the Etihad.
He said: “I tried to understand. I even asked some of the staff about my stats, and when I found out they were as good, if not better, both in training and in games, than those who played and were younger, I understood it didn’t have anything to do with fitness.”
Touré continued by explaining he felt Guardiola maybe was ‘jealous’ of him and felt he was a ‘rival’ to him, the midfielder even went as far as suggesting his ethnicity and origins might have had something to do with it.
He said: “He was cruel with me. You think Barcelona could have done that with Iniesta? I started thinking if it was because of my skin colour. I’m not the first to talk about these differences in treatment. At Barça, others asked themselves that.
“Maybe us Africans aren’t always treated in the same way. When we realised that he often has problems with Africans wherever he goes, I ask myself questions. He acts like he doesn’t have any problems, because he’s too intelligent to get caught. He’ll never admit it, but the day when he lines up a team with five non-naturalised Africans, I’ll send him a cake”.
As well as the comments about Guardiola, Yaya Touré also admitted he wasn’t left ‘indifferent’ to the project Marseille in Ligue 1 are currently building, suggesting he’d be open to a move there if the opportunity arose.
He’d have to lower his current wages by a considerable margin, but for a year or so, there’s certainly worse places to play football than the south of France.
