Harry Maguire has 'no regrets' over 2020 Mykonos incident

Manchester United captain Harry Maguire insists he has ‘no regrets’ about the incident in Mykonos in the summer of 2020 that saw him spend two nights in a jail cell and handed a 21-month suspended sentence after being found guilty for various alleged crimes.

Following an altercation outside a bar, the charges levelled at Maguire in a Greek court accused him of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest and attempted bribery.

His side of the story is that his younger sister had been injected with an unknown substance by two men. In trying to get help, he wound up at a local police station and alleges being beaten on the legs by people he didn’t believe to be genuine police officers.

Maguire had also tried to flee believing it to be an attempted kidnapping. A Greek court found him guilty, although an appeal that also nullified the initial conviction for the time being will be heard at a re-trial in June 2023.

“Some people will believe me; some people won’t. But one thing I would say about Mykonos is that I have no regrets,” the England international told The Times.

“I don’t worry about what the outcome is going to be. I don’t worry about anything to do with it because my conscience is so clear about what happened that night. The people who were there that night, there were nine of us, we all understand what went on and what happened.”

The whole incident arguably highlighted a naivety in Maguire, whose rise to the very top of the game was rapid to say the least. He paid to attend Euro 2016 as a fan just a year before his senior England debut and was a bit-part player for Hull in the Championship only three years before Manchester United made him the most expensive defender in football history.

In Mykonos in the summer of 2020, at the end of his first year as Manchester United captain, he was trying to live a ‘normal life’ and didn’t surround himself with an entourage or security.

“I can remember at the time, when it happened, a lot of people were like, ‘Well, why hasn’t he got security following him around? He’s got enough money to do that.’ But the bottom line is, I’m on holiday with my family. I’m not on a lads’ holiday,” he said.

“I’m on holiday with my wife and my sister and my brother. I want to live a normal life. If I can get away without having a security guard stood beside me watching over me, then I will do. It’s not something I want, really. It’s probably made me a little more aware that I’m in the spotlight that much.”