By Chris Wright
After a fortnight of ridiculous palaver, Man City announced last night that Carlos Tevez had been found guilty on five separate counts of breaching his contract on that fateful night in Munich and duly fined the Argentinian striker four week’s wages for the dubious crime of ‘refusing to warm up’ against Bayern.
Tevez was then told he had a further two weeks to appeal against the ruling and, if this morning’s papers are to be believed, it appears he fully intends to.
Fair enough, you may argue – indeed, considering City’s quick climb-down from their original accusation (refusing to play altogether) and the several eye-and-ear witnesses on the City bench that seem to have come forth in Tevez’s favour, it looks like he may have fairly stable grounds to contest his punishment.
End of? Not on your nelly.
Several papers and reliable online sources are reporting that Tevez is considering suing Roberto Mancini for ‘defamation of character’ over the debacle in Germany and the subsequent fallout.
The fact that he appears to be under the illusion that he still has a character left to defame would be my initial bone of contention, but a lawsuit? Really? Really? That said, the worrying thing with Tevez, regardless of the outcome of any imminent hypothetical court-case, is that he can’t really lose as things stand.
Regardez vous…
He’s having his character ‘defamed’, but his talent will undoubtedly land him a new club regardless of him being already widely regarded as a troublesome arsehole; He’s barred from first-team activity at Man City, but he doesn’t want to play for them anyway; He’s been fined somewhere approaching £1 million, but it’ll hardly be noticeable once skimmed from the top of his heaving bank account; He’s being gradually exiled from the club, but he doesn’t want to be there anyway, etc, etc.
Which, all-in-all, effectively leaves him free to piss, whine, keep the world abreast of how just hard done by he really is and, crucially, milk his current employers for all he can (by any means) up until he sods off at the nearest available juncture – such is his, or his circle-jerking advisers, wont.
As far as City and Mancini are concerned, the sooner Tevez is someone else’s problem, the better.