Eddie Mungai

Former Manchester City midfielder came out swinging in a revealing interview, stating how he feels Pep Guardiola doesn’t really like African players. He also stated the day when Guardiola has a squad of five non-naturalized African players on the field, he would award him a cake. Shocking claims by Toure, but it prompted me to look at Guardiola’s managerial career and see if he really doesn’t like African players.

So how did I measure whether he “liked” an African player? I looked at his tenure as manager of FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Manchester City and analyzed if he featured African players more than half of each season and whether he purchased any African players that particular season. Here is a chart:

As you can see, the table shows Pep Guardiola has only signed one African player in his nine-year managerial career. And in four different seasons, Guardiola has featured one or two African players more than half that season. He has also sold more African players than purchased.

How does this compare to the rest of the “Big Six” managers of the Premier League? Since the 2012/13 season, Antonio Conte, Jurgen Klopp, and Mauricio Pochettino each have either purchased an African player or played an African player for at least half a season. During the same period, Jose Mourinho has done the same thing except for last season whereas Arsène Wenger only did that for three seasons, but he’s helped make careers for Emmanuel Eboué, Emmanuel Adebayor, George Weah, Lauren and Yaya Toure’s older brother Kolo Toure. So Yaya may have a valid point.

But many will discount Yaya’s accusation of racism against Guardiola, for he has exhibited conceited, self-centered behavior. For instance, he complained about Manchester City not celebrating his birthday. In addition, he was out of the team the first

three months of Guardiola’s reign for the comments his agent made criticizing the manager regarding respect and playing time. Also at the beginning of the 2017/18 season, Yaya was again not featured for the first months of the season for “sporting reasons” as Guardiola labeled it. I take that as code for a manager’s demand for respect in response to dissent from a player. So it may not have anything to do with racial discrimination, much to Yaya’s chagrin, and he may be made the key culprit, as his prior problems dealing with the Spanish manager speak volumes. Another part, however, according to Toure, has to do with Guardiola’s problems with Africans and a need to have players obey him.

Let’s say Guardiola doesn’t have an affinity for African players. Could he be aware of the racism African players experience while in La Liga and the Bundesliga and not want to subject them to that kind of trauma? Could he be concerned that racist chants African players experience would destabilize the team? Would having African players leave for the African Cup of Nations in the middle of the season prevent the squad from winning trophies at the end of the season? Does the manager believe African players tend to have stronger personalities? Guardiola sympathizers may state the manager does not dislike African players, but it’s sheer coincidence or say Yaya is ungrateful for the opportunity of being coached twice by a successful manager and should just be quiet. Some may even quickly point to other black players (who don’t play for an African national team) Guardiola has managed, as this tweet demonstrates:

Overall, let’s not be so quick to reject this claim Yaya Toure presents us. He could be right. After all, he is the second high profile player (second to Zlatan) to talk about their disdain for Pep Guardiola, and the first African player to do so. Let’s see if any of the (few) past/current African players support Toure’s criticism.