Carlos Tevez sent shockwaves through the football world by refusing to come on as a subsitute for Manchester City at Bayern Munich. But as North East managers would testify, this moment has been coming. Mark Douglas reports

WHEN Asamoah Gyan deserted Sunderland to chase the Arab oil riches on offer at Al-Ain, Steve Bruce was questioned on why he didn’t make a stand and demand that his star striker stay and serve the cause he was contracted to.

On Tuesday night, in Munich, we got our answer.

The petulant decision of pouting Carlos Tevez to defy the orders of his manager Roberto Mancini and refuse to play against Bayern Munich – since denied, but hardly convincingly – has shocked football but those within the game have seen this moment coming.

Bruce was derided in some quarters for an inability to “manage” the egos of his millionaire players, but he recognised the galling truth – professional duties now take second place to personal pride in the priorities of certain footballers. And in the face of this player power, managers cut an increasingly diminished presence.

Observers talked of Gyan cutting a sulking figure at training in the weeks before his departure and his performances seemed to betray a lack of personal commitment to the cause. We were still some way off the Ghana forward refusing to actually turn out for Sunderland, but the moment his agents began to construct a lucrative escape clause for their disaffected client, Bruce knew he was fighting a losing battle.

There will be sympathy on Wearside at the predicament that Mancini finds himself in – even if Manchester City’s lavish spending may have quickened the rise of player power in the game.

Mancini seems like an eminently decent and respectable coach and, having indulged Tevez by handing him the captaincy last year, he was surely entitled to a modicum of loyalty, even if the Argentina striker felt slighted that he was not the first reserve option at the Allianz Arena.

Close to tears in his post-match press conference, he won admirers for saying that the forward would never be considered for first-team duty while the team was under his control. It was a stand of sorts, although it will make precious little difference as long as his club continue to artificially inflate the wage market by paying mediocre players astronomical sums.