Akanji comment raises Man City alarm bells: 'Who knows what else they might dig up'

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Tom Weber | Writer

Former Manchester City defender Manuel Akanji has raised eyebrows with a cryptic comment about the club's charges.

The Switzerland international played for the Manchester club between 2022 and 2025. Last year, he joined Inter on an initial loan deal, and his stay in Milan was made permanent this summer after he helped the Nerazzurri win the Scudetto.

During his time in England, Akanji was part of the treble-winning Man City team in 2023, and he won another Premier League title the following season. All told, the centre-back made 136 appearances for the Cityzens, scoring five times.

On Tuesday, Akanji started for his country in a comfortable 3-0 win over North Macedonia. After the match, he spoke to reporters in the mixed zone, and he was inevitably asked about the Man City verdict.

Last week, the Premier League announced that the club had been found guilty of "systematically" breaking financial rules for almost a decade in a landmark ruling whose consequences could pose an existential threat. Man City continue to deny any wrongdoing and have appealed the decision.

Akanji's slip of the tongue

When drawn on the topic of Man City, Akanji insisted that he couldn't provide any insight into what is going on despite still being in contact with some of his former teammates.

"I’m still in touch with a few players, but I don’t know any more than you do," he told the assembled reporters in quotes relayed by Nau. "We were told to stay calm, that they had everything under control and nothing major had happened.

"I trust the people in charge at Man City that that’s the case. I hope I don’t lose my titles. That would be a bit of a shame. But I’m only seeing learning about it all in the news, too."

This latter part of his statement immediately raised eyebrows. Man City's breaches were committed between 2009 and 2018, well before Akanji stepped foot on English soil.

No sanctions have as yet been handed down, so it is difficult to ascertain whether or not the Premier League could annul all of Man City's silverware, or just the titles won during the period of the breaches.

It is, however, virtually impossible to divorce Man City's dominance between 2018 and 2024 from the large-scale cheating that came before. Moreover, there is a question to be asked whether the breaking of rules actually stopped in 2018. That was just the cut-off point for the investigation.

When it was put to Akanji that the breaches took place before he arrived, he appeared to drop a bombshell by cryptically responding: "Who knows what else they might dig up."

Realising his slip of the tongue, he got annoyed and added: "After all, you’re still looking for things that happened five years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic."

This is in reference to teammates Granit Xhaka and Breel Embolo finding themselves in hot water after it came to light that they used forged documents during the pandemic. Both were forced to sit out the most recent Switzerland camp after the revelations.

Time will tell if this was just unfortunate phrasing from Akanji or if he knows something we don't.

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