Manchester City were accused of destroying the Premier League trophy during their celebration parade at the Etihad after a video which showed the iconic trophy shattered surfaced online on Monday.

The video appeared to show a trophy, resembling the iconic silverware, smashed to bits at the City training ground with the club’s top goal-scorer, Sergio Aguero, looking away confused. The video appeared at a time when City were parading across Manchester as a celebration for the record domestic-treble they had achieved. The Pep Guardiola coached-side not only retained the Premier League trophy but also won the League and FA Cup.

 

In the video, the players can be seen standing at the balcony of their training complex. Then as the camera pans down to the ground below, broken pieces of a trophy looked to be lying on the floor. A close look shows the broken pieces to be resembling the Premier League trophy. The large silver cup can be seen. Blue ribbons around the trophy’s neck are still there. One side of the Cup’s handle is broken.

The camera slowly comes up again and shows Aguero – City’s top-scorer – looking clueless before walking away.

But as it turned out, this was a cheeky prank by the club. A well-planned stunt, which showed that the City players were as good at acting as they are with their football skills. The video clip was reportedly a part of the City-TV, which was set to appear on the club’s social media channel.

Skysports news producer, Hush Kerai later confirmed the stunt news with a tweet. He tweeted that Manchester City have confirmed that it was just a prank and the original trophy has not been smashed.

 

But although they pulled out this stunt to perfection, City has had with dropping trophies. Left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko had accidentally knocked the Premier League trophy off its perch.

Meanwhile, Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos had famously dropped the Spanish Cup under the wheels of a double-decker bus during the club’s celebrations in 2011.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 21, 2019 11:04 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).