Pep Guardiola has denied Manchester City’s success is down to spending more money than anyone else and claimed it is “completely wrong” to argue their achievements have been tarnished by fresh allegations the club have broken Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

City’s reputation has been soured by a series of claims in German magazine Der Spiegel about the way they have cynically navigated their way around Uefa’s FFP rules, including claims that money supposedly provided by club sponsors, actually came directly from owner Sheikh Mansour.

Although the allegations about City’s business model were made before Guardiola became manager, he could not resist responding to the accusation the club had benefited unfairly from the financial support offered from Abu Dhabi.

“You have to accept it when people say you win just because of money [and] we accept it,” said Guardiola, who knows his City side could qualify for the knockout phase of the Champions League with two games to spare if they beat Shakhtar Donestk on Wednesday night. “We believe we work a lot, not just the manager, but the staff, players. We cannot achieve what we've achieved without it.

“The big clubs, they all have [the money] to spend on good players and all the ideas we have, we cannot do them without good players.