‘They were all lying’: Former Manchester City defender opens up about his acrimonious exit

Richard Dunne Manchester City Sheikh Mansour
(Image credit: Getty Images)

When Manchester City were taken over by Sheikh Mansour in the summer of 2008, the club were naturally linked with a host of star names for considerable transfer fees. 

Richard Dunne would go onto play 31 times at centre-back for City in the Premier League during the 2008/09 season, but, when it came to the summer transfer window, the Irish international felt the club were forcing him out. 

"It was annoying because they were trying to sign John Terry during pre-season in South Africa," Dunne tells FourFourTwo.

"I asked, 'Am I leaving?' and the staff said, 'No, he’s going to play with you' – so they were all lying, which I didn’t appreciate. I didn’t feel that I needed to just sit around."

When FFT asks about former Manchester City CEO Garry Cook comments: "Richard Dunne doesn’t roll off the tongue in Beijing" talking about the club’s global ambitions, Dunne is forthright in his response. 

"We’d had a couple of meetings prior to that and he wasn’t someone I particularly liked, so it didn’t surprise me," Dunne says. 

"He wasn’t a football person and I didn’t have much respect for him. It was almost, ‘Forget the football – we just want to sell jerseys’, while I thought the club needed to concentrate on getting better."

Get better they duly did, though not without Dunne. After nine full seasons at Manchester City, Dunne departed for Aston Villa, costing Martin O'Neill's side £5m. 

City, meanwhile, were unable to bring in their desired centre-back of John Terry. Instead, they replaced Dunne with Joleon Lescott and Kolo Toure, adding the pair to a squad which already included Vincent Kompany, Nedum Onuoha and Micah Richards

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Manchester City's transfer news is ramping up, with Pep Guardiola's side linked with a number of defenders - and they could even steal Declan Rice from right under Arsenal's noses.

They could lose some star names this summer, though: Ilkay Gundogan is set to join Barcelona, Kyle Walker reportedly wants out, and Bernardo Silva has been offered a lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia

Ryan Dabbs
Staff writer

Ryan is a staff writer for FourFourTwo, joining the team full-time in October 2022. He first joined Future in December 2020, working across FourFourTwo, Golf Monthly, Rugby World and Advnture's websites, before eventually earning himself a position with FourFourTwo permanently. After graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Journalism and Communications, Ryan earned a NCTJ qualification to further develop as a writer while a Trainee News Writer at Future. 

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