Marcus Rashford admitted he wasn’t happy to see Manchester City handed a two-year Champions League ban and ‘it’s not nice’ for it to happen to his friends at the club.
While some Manchester United fans were no doubt celebrating their noisy neighbours’ demise after City were penalised for ‘serious breaches’ of Financial Fair Play, the England attacker was not one of them.
And even though it could directly benefit Rashford and United in their own pursuit of Champions League football this season – although City have appealed the ban and the £25.2million fine from Uefa – he still didn’t want them to be banned.
Asked if he was happy at City being banned by a group of children in a feature for BT Sport, he replied: ‘No, I have friends that play for City.
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‘So it’s not nice to see it happen to them.’
Quizzed on whether he disliked United’s local rivals, he added: ‘No, I don’t not like Man City.
‘It’s obviously difficult because there’s people in my family who support City and it’s just one of those things were when we’re speaking about football we just don’t really get in to that.
‘I was always a United fan as soon as I knew that United wanted me to go and train there that was the end of it basically.
‘I just fell in love with the club from then.’
Rashford was also grilled on whether he thought Pep Guardiola – whose contract expires at the end of next season – would be dismissed as Man City manager, to which he replied: ‘That’s a tough question.
‘No, Pep’s a top manager. I think City are lucky to have a manager like him.’
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