'Shocked' Vieira smells 'conspiracy' against City

Former Manchester City player Patrick Vieira suspects some kind of conspiracy is on to prevent City from winning the Premier League title this season.

Vieira, who is an executive and an ambassador at the Etihad, is shocked by decisions that have gone against City players in 2012.

"I don't want to think about it, because I don't want to say that everyone is against City or anything like that," The Sun quoted Vieira, as saying.

"But when you look at the last few decisions, you are asking yourself if something is wrong here, if people don't want us to win the league," he added.

He said City has been left aggravated due to some harsh decisions, particularly the four-match ban on their captain Vincent Kompany for his tackle on Nani in the FA Cup tie with Manchester United last month.

"We try our best to win the league, we accept our punishment. But when you look what is happening to the other ones, that makes us as a football club really frustrated. The one for Kompany was one of the harshest decisions I've ever seen in the last few months," he said.

Vieira also bemoaned that players from other football clubs have been dealt with less severity for similar offences on the field.

Liverpool's Glen Johnson escaped for his two-footed dive on Joleon Lescott in last month's Carling Cup tie and Chelsea's Frank Lampard got away with one similar while Peter Crouch escaped punishment from the FA review panel for an eye-gouging incident.

"Frank Lampard's tackle looked dangerous compared to Vincent's. Crouch, when he put his finger in the eye of another player, looked bad as well."

"It felt like that anything that City will do will be amplified and we get punished, compared to the other teams and the other players."

"When you see the last few decisions and everything is against us, compared to the other ones. It seems like if you have one referee you get one decision but if you have a different referee the decision may also be different," he said. (ANI)