The Sunday News
Pep Guardiola has agreed to join Manchester City next season, according to reports in Spain on Thursday night.
The Bayern Munich manager’s contract expires at the end of the season and he is set for talks with the club’s chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge next month to decide his future.
According to Spanish radio station Cadena COPE, however, the former Barcelona manager has already decided to take over at the Etihad Stadium.
“Guardiola has decided on a change of scenery,” the report read. “He considers his time in Germany will end on 30 June after three seasons and, therefore, fulfil one of his wishes: to coach in England.”
The report also claims that current City boss Manuel Pellegrini will be allowed to leave.
Barcelona based paper El Mundo Deportivo claimed that the Bayern Munich boss signed a pre-contract with City on Thursday to take over at the end of this season, just 24 hours after City limped to another miserable Champions League defeat, this time in Turin.
Sportsmail was told late on Thursday night that no such deal had been agreed and that the 44-year-old coach’s future remains undecided.
But suggestions that a deal had already been done came just a day after Rummenigge shocked listeners at a sponsor’s event when he was asked about Guardiola’s future and said: “No one is irreplaceable. Players come and go and it is the same for coaches.
“The coaches come in and at some point they leave. If Guardiola leaves another exceptional coach will come in.”
Bayern are still keen to keep Guardiola but this was the first indication that they may already be thinking about having to replace him at the end of the season.
Rummenigge confirmed that he will hold talks with Guardiola after Bayern play Hannover on December 19.
He said: “It is not planned to push back that date. We have always said there will be a decision in 2015.
Guardiola has already promised to make his decision before the end of the year and Manchester City are not the only club interested in offering him a new challenge away from the Bundesliga.
But the presence of his friend Txiki Begiristain at the Etihad continues to make them favourites to take him if he leaves Germany. — Online
