Rice in hot water for ref ‘cheat’ slur
Three-game ban on cards for Hammers midfielder
DECLAN RICE is facing a threegame European ban after footage emerged showing West Ham’s captain accusing Thursday’s referee of ‘corruption’ and telling him: ‘You’ve probably been f ****** paid.’
The Hammers exited the Europa League in anger, with Aaron Cresswell shown an early red card and manager David Moyes dismissed for booting the ball at a ball boy at Eintracht Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park.
Though West Ham accepted the early sending off for Cresswell was correct, they felt Spanish referee Jesus Gil Manzano was biased towards Frankfurt for the rest of the semi-final second leg.
Rice did not hold back from telling Manzano his thoughts in the tunnel as he was caught on camera saying: ‘Ref, ref. It’s so poor. All night it’s so bad. How can you be that bad? Honestly, you’ve probably been f ****** paid. F ****** corruption.’
Rice was shown a yellow card during the game for yelling at Manzano and may now be slapped with retrospective action. UEFA rules state ‘insulting any match official’ will result in a threematch ban and possible fine. UEFA are aware of the footage and are expected to review it, while they have also received reports from match officials.
If suspended, Rice would miss his first three European games next season, whether in the Champions League, Europa League or Europa Conference League. The suspension would carry over, even if he were to leave West Ham.
Moyes said yesterday: ‘It shows you how much all the players care. We all cared very much last night. We felt as if we had been treated quite badly overall and that is what happens.
‘If you know football, everybody is emotional so unless you’re in the heat of it sometimes people don’t understand how it feels.
‘Last night, we had a group of players who were really connected, trying to win the game and felt it was very difficult under lots of different circumstances.’
Unlike the tunnel incident, Rice was slightly more diplomatic in his post-match interviews, saying ‘every decision’ went Frankfurt’s way on the night.
Cresswell apologised to his team-mates for his costly red card but is expected to be thrown straight back into the mix at Norwich tomorrow. Moyes has yet to name his team but is not set to punish the 32-year-old defender by dropping him.
German newspaper Bild gave Cresswell the lowest possible score in their player ratings, while Sportsmail was only slightly more generous, awarding him two out of 10.