Manchester City refused to let Norwegian broadcaster Viaplay put any questions to Erling Haaland about the club’s guilty verdict in an interview ahead of Sunday’s trip to Liverpool, according to new reports.
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It’s probably fair to assume that Haaland’s team turn down more interviews than they grant, so the sight of Manchester City’s talisman sitting down to preview a trip to Anfield was always going to draw attention - especially in the wake of the few weeks the club has had off the pitch.
The Norway striker spoke to Viaplay, his country’s Premier League rights holder, on Thursday as the countdown to this weekend’s meeting with Liverpool began in earnest. One subject, somewhat predictably, proved strictly out of bounds.
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland has shown his full support for the football club amid the ongoing situation surrounding the Premier League and their guilty verdict issued last month.cityxtra.co.ukErling Haaland Offers Full Support and Allegiance to Man City Amid Guilty Premier League Verdict
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland has shown his full support for the football club amid the ongoing situation surrounding the Premier League and their guilty verdict issued last month.
The question that never came
Viaplay had hoped to ask Haaland about the independent commission’s ruling that Manchester City had committed serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, a verdict the club are appealing and strenuously deny.
As reported by Norwegian outlet VG and relayed by Mirror Sport, the chance simply never materialised. Viaplay’s sports director, Kristian Oma, explained that the broadcaster had been told in no uncertain terms that the topic was off the table.
It wasn’t just City, either; he added that no other Premier League club had been willing to sanction questions on the verdict in the build-up to this weekend’s fixtures.
It left Viaplay in the awkward position of previewing a blockbuster match while the biggest story hanging over it went unaddressed.
However, that is no different from what outlets in the UK are working with; Enzo Mareca repeatedly stressed during his press conference on Friday that he was strictly limited in what he could say.
A co-ordinated silence across the division
It is interesting to note that the no-verdict-talk restriction was not framed as a policy put in place by City alone. By Oma’s account, the reluctance to field questions on the ruling extends across the division.
The club have kept their public response tightly controlled since the commission’s findings landed, letting a short, firm statement of innocence, a similarly brief letter from chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and the promise of an appeal do most of the talking rather than exposing players or staff to open questioning.
With the sanctions hearing still to come and the appeal lodged, there is little sense in a player wading into a live legal fight on a broadcaster’s sofa, least of all one of the faces of the club.
Haaland keeps it to the pitch
While the verdict was off limits, Haaland was happy enough to talk about football. In separate comments, the striker sounded upbeat about the travelling support heading to Merseyside, predicting the Manchester City fans making the trip “are gonna have a good time” at Anfield.
That was in keeping with the message coming from inside the club this week, with manager Enzo Maresca also calling for players and supporters to pull together through a testing run of fixtures.
Sunday’s 16:30 UK kick-off against Liverpool is quickly followed by a UEFA Champions League date with Paris Saint-Germain, and the questions City players are declining to answer off the pitch will matter to supporters a little less if they can answer questions on it.