Footballers shouldn’t be punished for ‘f-word’ abuse of officials: Wenger

LONDON - Defending his skipper Cesc Fabregas after his tunnel blow-up on Tuesday, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has said that players should not be punished for f-word abuse of officials.

Fabregas had angrily accused Everton players of paying referee Lee Mason.

“Take the 20 captains of the Premier League and then try to convince me that not one of them says something to a referee for the whole team,” Wenger said.

“You have people who say ‘f*** off’ to the referee in front of the camera and it doesn’t shock anybody. It doesn’t shock you,” The Sun quoted him, as saying.

“You now have the example of Gary Neville who has retired - fantastic player, fantastic career. You think he has never talked in the tunnel? You have to be normal and to have a little bit of tolerance as well with what is happening in the tunnel,” Wenger said.

“I would like the media to talk about what is really important in football. What is important to people is that the right decisions are made on the football pitch,” he said.

“One of the problems of the modern game is that the media picks out one incident of the game but for me this incident is minor and then you have to speak about this for days and days, something which didn’t influence the result of the game. What influenced the result of the game was that the goal was offside,” Wenger added. (ANI)