Barry Horne: I don’t buy Kia Joorabchian’s excuses for Carlos Tevez

Oct 8 2011 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Echo

THE Carlos Tevez saga drags on with his advisor Kia Joorabchian speaking at the same conference as Bill Kenwright.

His comparisons of Tevez with Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas and Luka Modric don’t stack up.

It was never stated that Fabregas refused to play, rather was absent through injury towards the end of his time at Arsenal.

Modric asked well in advance of a particular game not to be considered giving his manager Harry Redknapp time to plan, and Nasri actually played very well, and earned plenty of praise for his attitude a couple of days before his move.

His other ‘defence’ was the translation of an interview Tevez gave after the game against Bayern Munich, that he alleged was mistranslated and to blame for the confusion over whether he refused to play. He went on to complain about the inadequacy of the translator provided, and three things spring to mind.

Firstly, Tevez has been in England a good while now and his unwillingness to bring his English up to scratch indicates he never intended to stick around for long anyway.

Secondly, if having an interpreter is so important to him he could always pay for one himself from his significant wages, that made any fine the club could impose on him basically meaningless.

Thirdly, surely there are millions of Spanish speakers watching that interview around the world to verify the exact words which were said and the context they were in.