Yaya Toure has accused Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola of racism in a latest interview with France Football magazine. The 35-year-old football star was reunited with his former Barcelona boss at the Etihad when the latter made the switch from Bayern Munich in 2016.
However, his chances of playing actively for the Citizens dwindled over time with the midfielder starting one game in his side's domineering campaign in the English Premier League this season. The situation, as a result, caused the Ivorian to part ways with the Manchester club having been instrumental in their success story in the past eight years.
A truly explosive interview that comes out in France Football tomorrow, during which Yaya Touré insists on "exploding the myth" that is, in his view, Pep Guardiola.
— Get French Football (@GFFN) June 4, 2018
Speaking to France Football, he said: "Pep likes to dominate and wants to have his obedient players kissing his hands. I don't like that kind of relationship. I respect my coach but that's not for me.
"He took away my chance to say goodbye to City, a club with wonderful fans. I would have liked to leave in the same way that Iniesta and (Gianluigi) Buffon did, but Pep stopped that.
"He was cruel with me. Do you believe that Barcelona could have done that with (Andres) Iniesta? "I even started wondering to myself whether it was about my color.
"I'm not the first person to talk about his different ways of treating people. I know some other people at Barca who have also wondered about that.
"Maybe it's the case that we Africans aren't always treated by certain people in the same way that they treat others.
"When you see that he's had problems with Africans wherever he's been in the past, you wonder. "When the day comes that he picks a team featuring five Africans – and not naturalized Africans – I promise I will send him a cake!"
Yaya Toure joins the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Samuel Eto'o as another big name to question Pep Guardiola's player management skills in recent years.
