Lille Deny Walk Off Claims

Well, it was all happening last night at the Lille v Man Utd Champions League tie. As reported earlier, Manchester United supporters were involved in a crush scare whilst on the pitch, it is alleged that the Lille players were trying to walk off the pitch in an attempt to get the match abandoned, after Ryan Giggs had taken a quick free-kick, late on in the game, from which he scored, resulting in the 1 - 0 win.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the United Manager, after branding Lille a “disgrace”, claimed, “I have never seen that before in all my years in football.

“That is a disgrace and Uefa have to do something about that because it was pure intimidation of the referee.” (Not that United players have ever done that down the years, of course!)

Ferguson further added: “The Lille staff encouraged their players to come off and that made it a hostile atmosphere inside the ground. It’s a disgrace.

“Uefa will have to come down on it. They have to. It was very worrying because they were throwing missiles and Gary Neville got hit by something.”

As the Lille players began to gather at the touch line, Sir Alex ordered his team to remain on the pitch. Quite right. I mean, I don’t care if you’re playing down the park in a Sunday pub league or playing in the Champions League, your opponents can’t just walk off the pitch, saying “it’s our ball and we don’t want to play any more!”

However, Lille have, of course, categorically denied that their players were trying to walk off the pitch. The Lille coach, Guy Peul, has backed his President in this claim and then had a go at Ferguson, stating, “I don’t know how that man Ferguson can allow himself to comment like that about this. He should have said nothing.

“The team wished to make a complaint about the goal and didn’t want to leave the field. They were just making a protest. (Ah bless. Talk about throwing the toys out of the pram!)

“In France the tradition is to make a protest at the first pause in the game and then after the match.” (Then what? Surrender?) If everybody protested every time they thought there was a bad decision against them, every game would take about 10 hours. What a ridiculous thing to say, or is it just me?

I told you what went on at this game, on and off the pitch, will run for a while.

The Soccer Blogger