The Sky Blues were one of the 12 founding members of the breakaway Super League that collapsed within less than 48 hours of its announcement.
Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak admits the club’s involvement in the European Super League was a “mistake”.
Six Premier League clubs, three La Liga giants, and as many Serie A sides were invited as plans to begin an exclusive competition involving only the European heavyweights rapidly began to take shape.
Furious fan protests and intense media criticism, however, did not allow the Super League plans to come to fruition. Man City and Man United quickly pulled out of the competition following the backlash and so did Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Tottenham while Inter Milan and AC Milan, although in an ambiguous manner, also followed suit.
Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Juventus, meanwhile, are yet to officially announce their surrender.
“I want to start with apologising to the fans. I owe it,” Man City chairman Al Mubarak said in an interview with the club’s official website.
“It was a mistake. I think in hindsight, the decision should have been from the beginning: a decision not to participate in this league.
“I absolutely regret it. The benefit of hindsight is easy right now. I regret it and you can see it: our reluctance.
“It was very difficult. It was not an easy decision to say ‘yes, no’ and ‘we’re in’ or ‘we’re out.’
“I think you can see in terms of the timing of when we actually did commit, it tells you a lot in terms of how challenging a decision it was and how much we struggled with that decision.
“But you can also see that once we recognise there was a mistake, that’s it. We needed to go out immediately.
“I’m not going to sit here and defend the reason why we did it. What I will do is: I will own it. I took a decision ultimately on this and I take full responsibility, and it was a mistake.”
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