In a remarkable speech, Carlos Tevez’s agent Kia Joorabchian insisted that Carlos Tevez did not refuse to go on as a substitute for Manchester City against Bayern Munich and that he is simply a victim of mistranslation.
Joorabchian told the Leaders in Football conference in London on Wednesday that Tevez was not the sort of player who would refuse to take to the pitch.
“When questions are asked right after the game, things are put out of context,” Joorabchian said. “If you don’t have a very professional interpreter then you have a problem. I speak Spanish and I speak English. I listened to the questions in English and I listened to the interpretation in Spanish and the interpretation was incorrect; it was a different interpretation. Both questions were interpreted incorrectly and both answers of Carlos were misinterpreted. The way the interpreter presented it, Geoff Shreeves says something like: ‘What is the truth, Carlos?’ He refers to the point where the fighting has occurred and Mancini says Carlos is finished. Carlos then says the truth is that in this point in time how am I going to be in a mental state to play? But the interpreter says something very different.”
Tevez is thought to have told City that although he refused to warm up, having already done so twice, he never refused to go on to the pitch.
“What happened on the bench in Munich was one of a lot of confusion as shown on the TV footage,” said Joorabchian. “The events of Munich have been judged prior to the real outcome coming out. We see Nigel de Jong going on and Carlos still warming up and a God-awful row between Roberto Mancini and Edin Dzeko. You see this row carrying on and Carlos sits down. Carlos then stands up, there’s more shouting and he sits back down. The next thing we hear is what Roberto says.”
The day after the match, which City lost 2-0, Tevez issued a statement in which he said there was “some confusion on the bench” and he believed his position may have been misunderstood. In the statement, which Joorabchian said he did not see before it was released, Tevez insisted he had not refused to go on.
Someone is telling a lot of porkies here, and I think it is Joorabchian. Various media outlets in the UK have asked Spanish translators to listen to Tevez’s comments after the game, and they all agree that what Tevez actually said was :
“It’s just that I didn’t want to go on because I thought I was unwell. I wasn’t emotionally well and I thought it better not to.
Pretty unambiguous quote from Tevez. As for Joorabchian saying he did not see Tevez’s statement before it was released, is he trying to say that Carlos Tevez, who after five years in England still cannot speak English, wrote the statement himself using a Spanish/English dictionary?
Man City have initially given Tevez a two-week suspension and £500,000 fine, and reports say that they want to extend that to a six-week suspension and £1.5million fine. That will keep him away from Man City until mid November at which point he will be told to train with the reserves in the afternoon until the January transfer window opens.
