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Yaya Toure at a Manchester City training session just before being shut out by manager Pep Guardiola. Photo: Reuters

Apologise or else: Yaya Toure won’t play for Manchester City again until he says sorry

Manager Pep Guardiola takes a hard line over comments made about him by the midfielder’s agent

Yaya Toure retired from international football with the Ivory Coast on Tuesday – and he won’t be playing again for Manchester City either unless his agent apologises for comments about club coach Pep Guardiola.

The midfielder’s representative, Dimitri Seluk, recently said Guardiola humiliated his client by leaving him out of City’s squad for the Champions League group stage

That irritated Guardiola, who said that since then “Yaya is out”.

It’s my way or the highway: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola won’t accept any nonsense from Yaya Toure and his agent. Photo: EPA

“I accept if Mr Dimitri Seluk came in a press conference or [spoke to] his friends in the media – because he has not the courage to call me – and apologised to Manchester City, his teammates, and the trainer,” Guardiola said.

“When that happens, Yaya will be part of the group and he will have the same chance to play all the games.”

Until then, the 33-year-old Toure won’t be adding to his one appearance this season, a virtually dead match in the Champions League play-offs. He didn’t even make the substitutes’ bench for City’s other seven matches.

An integral part of City’s team since signing for the English club in 2010, Toure struggled for form last season and isn’t deemed fit enough by Guardiola to play City’s high-energy pressing game in the Spanish coach’s first season at Etihad Stadium.

Guardiola previously coached Toure at Barcelona, and sold him to City.

Yaya Toure in action against Steaua Bucharest in a Champions League “dead rubber” play-off match in August. Since then he has been on the outer, not even making the substitutes’ bench for City’s matches in the Premier League. Photo: AFP

Now City coach Guardiola has showed he is not afraid to take on big personalities at the club, having also sent long-time goalkeeper Joe Hart on loan to Torino for the rest of the season.

“I cannot imagine in my period when I was a football player [at Barcelona], my [agent] going to the media and speaking against [former Barca coach] Johan Cruyff, about this and about that,” Guardiola said. “Maybe it’s a new era now, the new period changing, but I’m an old guy. I am old generation, and [(an] old-generation manager has to make his players his job and trainers his job.”

Seluk is an outspoken agent, and even complained in 2014 that City showed Toure – a four-time African player of the year – a lack of respect by not giving him a cake for his 31st birthday.

“Today, [agents] believe they are more than they are,” Guardiola said. “If he has a problem call [director of football] Txiki Begiristain, the club, and they can talk. Until he doesn’t speak, Yaya is not going to play.”

Hours before Guardiola spoke out, Toure announced in a statement on his Twitter page that he would no longer play for the Ivory Coast.

He played 113 times for his country, captaining the Ivorians to the Africa Cup of Nations title last year.

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