Rice risks Uefa ban for accusing semi-final referee of corruption
Declan Rice is at risk of a threegame ban in European competition after footage from the tunnel showed the West Ham United midfielder berating the referee in Thursday’s Europa League semifinal defeat by Eintracht Frankfurt.
Video footage shot from within the tunnel area showed Rice calling for the attention of Spanish referee Jesus Gil Manzano, before telling him: “It’s so poor. All night, it’s so bad. How can you be that bad? Honestly. Probably been f------ paid. F----corruption.”
Uefa’s disciplinary body will assess the reports from the match before deciding whether to take action against the England midfielder. Under Uefa regulations, a player faces a three-game suspension if he is found to have insulted a match official. Left-back Aaron Cresswell and manager David Moyes were both shown red cards by the referee as West Ham’s European adventure ended with a 1-0 defeat in Germany.
Moyes said yesterday that there was no prospect of West Ham starting their own disciplinary procedure against Rice after his outburst.
“Not a chance,” said Moyes. “Not on my watch anyway. If Uefa punishes him that is down to them.
“Declan is the captain, Declan is fully behind the team and totally committed. We are all fighting for the same thing, which is to be winners. Declan is part of that. He gave a small show of how emotional we all were. Myself and the whole team felt that we were up against a really difficult night.”
Rice had also made clear his frustration with the officials in a postmatch interview on Thursday night, telling BT Sport that “every decision” went in favour of Frankfurt.
“The sending off was probably a sending off, but some of the other decisions were poor,” Rice said. “The ref seemed to make every decision go for them. When you have someone against you, you can’t do much.”
A ban would rule Rice out of the start of next season’s European campaign, should West Ham qualify for Uefa competition.