How could a player, earning as much as he does per week, refuse to participate for his side during a Champions League game? Clearly this is a ridiculous state of affairs, where a player like Tevez can decide that he doesn’t have to obey his manager’s orders.
The Argentine was a disgrace to football last night, his behaviour symptomatic of something deeply troubling and wrong at the club. But his refusal to play is also symptomatic of something else. Tevez of course, has wanted to leave Eastlands for some time, and last summer pined for a move closer to home. A switch to Corinthians was denied when City decided that the Brazilian club’s offer would not suffice; they wanted more money up front.
If any team did not need money up front, it was City. And if any team were in no position to cast judgment over another side’s ability to pay a hefty transfer fee, again it was City. Yet they refused to allow Tevez to leave.
As a result, they now have a player whom they know does not want to be there, but whom they denied a move back to Brazil, much closer to his daughter and family. As Roberto Mancini said, imagine a player from Bayern Munich, Milan or Man Utd doing this? They wouldn’t. But then, those three teams are genuinely class acts, rather than City, whose treatment of their players leaves much to be desired.
This is what last night showed. Tevez was clearly wrong to have refused to play, but this is a two sided problem, and it is exacerbated by City’s treatment of him as though he is just a piece of meat of sorts, to coin a phrase once used by Roy Keane. In the modern world, players cannot be forced to play for teams against their will, but City have attempted to do this, and have behaved as though Tevez has no issue playing for the club, and does not want to leave. This is nonsense. In doing so, they have worsened a situation and caused it to lead to what happened last night.
Tevez quite clearly, was wrong, but for City to act as though innocent bystanders in this, a team wronged, is laughable. They have reaped precisely what they sowed.
