Guardiola dismisses Man City rumours
BERLIN: Pep Guardiola said on Tuesday he will only decide his Bayern Munich future at the end of the season and dismissed rumours of a move to Manchester City.
Guardiola has been tipped as a possible candidate to replace City coach Manuel Pellegrini, but the Spaniard poured cold water on any speculation.
“I have had no offers and I am not waiting for any,” he said in Tuesday’s press conference. “I’m very happy here, this is an outstanding club.
“I want to fulfil my contract and do my job well, that is all I am thinking about at the moment.
“I still have a year and a half left on my contract. We will sit together in the summer and then we’ll see how things go,” added the 44-year-old.
Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummeigge has said he wants to extend with Guardiola as soon as possible.
But the Spaniard is notorious for balking at long-term contracts with his current deal to expire in June 2016.
Guardiola won four titles last season in his first year in charge and is on course to steer Bayern to a third straight Bundesliga title in May.
Having won the Champions League title twice with previous club Barcelona, Guardiola is desperate to bring the title to Bavaria having lost in last season’s semi-finals to eventual winners Real Madrid.
Meanwhile Germany’s World Cupwinning coach Joachim Loew on Tuesday distanced himself from allegations of doping levelled at his former clubs Freiburg and Stuttgart.
On Monday, an evaluation commission from Freiburg’s sport medicine clinic claimed anabolic steroids were used at the Bundesliga clubs during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“Doping has no place in sport, I completely disapprove of it, that is as true for me as a player as it still is today as the national coach,” Loew told SID, an AFP subsidiary.
Germany head coach played in midfield for Freiburg from 1978-80, then again from 1982-84, while he spent the 1980/81 season at Stuttgart, whom he later coached.
Having won the 1984 Bundesliga title, Stuttgart, who are currently bottom of the table, say they will co-operate with any investigation, but want a full copy of the commission’s report to retrace the evidence.
“For us, it is hard to give out any information because we don’t have any facts at hand and it happened well before our time,” Stuttgart’s director of sport Robin Dutt told Sky Sports.
“Nevertheless, we want to give a watertight explanation, because we are interested in clean sport.
“In professional football, there is regular drugs testing and it appears there are no irregular findings.
“Therefore I strongly believe that in football we have a clean sport across the board.”
Freiburg, who were in the second division during the period stipulated, say they will also support an investigation.