PEP GUARDIOLA claims Manchester City’s enemies want the club wiped “off the face of the earth.”
Football’s trial of the century began on Monday with an independent hearing into 115 charges alleging financial fair play rule breaches levelled at City by the Prem.
Champions City face relegation, points deductions or huge fines if found guilty.
But, ahead of Sunday’s showdown with Arsenal, Guardiola weighed in on everyone’s thoughts on the case.
He said: “Everyone expects us to be not just relegated, they want us to disappear off the face of the earth.
“We have had many better days than our opponents. That’s why we win a lot. It’s not complicated.”
City deny all the charges and the hearing is expected to last two months.
But, if boss Guardiola named the “enemies” he says want to make his club “disappear”, he might not look beyond Sunday’s opponents.
City are understood to be convinced the Arsenal hierarchy led a Prem group who wanted to stop them playing in the Champions League in 2020 while they appealed a two-year ban from European football.
Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Leicester, Newcastle, Wolves and Burnley were other clubs in what City saw as a ‘gang of nine’ after Uefa found them guilty of “serious breaches” of FFP rules between 2012 and 2016.
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But the Court of Arbitration for Sport later overturned the ban after clearing City of disguising equity funds as sponsorship.
In 2011, then Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger accused City of trying to bend rules over a £400m deal with Etihad Airways.
Wenger insisted: “It raises the real question about the credibility of financial fair play.
“They give us the message that they can get around it by doing what they want.”
