Khaldoon Al Mubarak Says Guardiola Quit 100 Times At City
khaldoon al mubarak said Pep Guardiola threatened to quit 100 times during his Manchester City spell, a running battle he compared with The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Guardiola left last month after 10 years, ending a run that brought 17 major honours and four contract extensions.
Guardiola and Al Mubarak
Al Mubarak said he treated those threats as part of the job. “I don’t know if he will admit it, but I consider myself his psychiatrist,” he said, adding: “In the case of Pep, when he says ‘I quit’, it doesn’t mean he’s quitting.”
He said the pattern was familiar enough that it could not be taken at face value. “You don’t take it that seriously, you have to manage him,” he said. That management lasted through Guardiola’s first deal, a three-year contract, and then through four extensions in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024.
City’s contract cycle
Al Mubarak said Guardiola never expected to stay beyond four years, then kept revisiting the question in years four and five about how much longer he would remain. He said: “Whenever he quits or whenever he thinks it’s time, I will always convince him to come back, until the time where I know it’s the real time, the real moment Pep decides it’s time.”
That final exit came without a fight. “He knew – and I knew that he knew – and that’s why it was the right thing for him and it was the natural thing,” Al Mubarak said. “I did not fight this at all because I knew this was the time he meant it.”
Manchester City’s next chapter
Guardiola’s departure closes a 10-year stretch that helped define City’s modern era. Al Mubarak said the club are “far from peaked” and described City as “a club that is designed, built to win.” He also said Guardiola gave the team a winning mindset and DNA.
The chairman linked that standard back to the club’s earlier titles under Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini, then pointed to Enzo Maresca as Guardiola’s replacement. He also said Erling Haaland “was always a leader from the first day he stepped into this club [in summer 2022],” a sign that the squad’s core is expected to carry the same demand now that Guardiola is gone.
