Yaya Toure on course for bust-up with Manchester City

Lodon: Yaya Toure, a star of Manchester City’s title-winning side this season, is threatening to force a move from the Etihad Stadium this summer after being upset by the club’s failure to mark his 31st birthday sufficiently.

On a day of farce surrounding the Ivory Coast midfielder on Tuesday, Toure denied then confirmed claims by his agent that he was unhappy at the club.

With City robustly rejecting the possibility of Toure being sold or offered a new contract, the prospect of an acrimonious battle between club and player has been raised by the incredible comments of his Russian adviser, Dmitry Seluk.

“Yaya is so upset, he is thinking of leaving City,” Seluk said. “There are a number of things that have happened that have left Yaya feeling bitterly upset. City have treated him with disrespect and have really hurt him.

“What happened at his birthday meant the club don’t care about him. It was proof. They can say whatever they want, ‘Oh we like him, but we forgot’. None of them shook his hand on his birthday. It’s really sick.”

Toure, who has complained on more than one occasion this season that his ability is overlooked because he is African, appeared to rubbish Seluk’s claims by issuing the following response via his Twitter account. “Thanks for all the birthday messages today. Card from City just arrived... Must have got lost in the post. Haha. Jokes aside. Please do not take words that do not come out of MY mouth seriously. Judge my commitment to @MCFC by my performances.”

However, within an hour of those conciliatory tweets, Toure reignited the furore by suggesting Seluk was indeed speaking on his behalf by criticising City’s treatment of him. “Everything dimitry said is true,” Toure tweeted. “He speaks for me. I will give an interview after world cup to explain.”

With Toure having signed a four-year contract as recently as April 2013, senior figures at the Etihad have privately insisted that the former Barcelona player will not be sold and that no negotiations will take place to discuss an improvement to his terms.

And the club moved quickly to pour scorn on Seluk’s claims, with the publication of a video clip showing Toure being presented with a birthday cake and serenaded with a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ by cabin crew and teammates on the team’s flight to Abu Dhabi last week.

City were on Tuesday night attempting to discover whether the player had tweeted himself from Ivory Coast’s Qatari training camp or if his account had been updated by an adviser.

Toure’s discontent is likely to be a serious cause for concern, however, due to the midfielder’s crucial contribution to City’s title success. When Seluk issued similarly outlandish claims about the player being unhappy last season on the basis of a lack of Toure shirts in the club shop and absence of pictures of him around the Etihad — with the exception of a 25-foot poster of Toure on the side of stadium — the club ultimately negotiated his new contract.

Some within the club believe Seluk and Toure are simply attempting to repeat the trick that proved successful last season, but Seluk insisted the player’s issues were not money-related. “No. Money is not important,” Seluk said.

“He has enough money. The most important thing is a human relationship and maybe this is his opportunity for Yaya to find that. If City don’t respect him, then easy — Yaya will leave. No problem.

“He [Toure] got a cake, but when it was Roberto Carlos’s birthday, the president of Anzhi gave him a Bugatti. I don’t expect City to present Yaya with a Bugatti, we only asked that they shook his hand and said ‘we congratulate you’. It is the minimum they must do when it is his birthday and the squad is all together.

“Of course, Yaya is upset about this. It is his birthday and nobody said anything or shook his hand, so he does not feel comfortable.”