What Hazard SHOULD have done was to bring this to the attention of the referee and not just sticking his boot in! There can be no toleration for taking the law into your own hands and certainly not with the use of violence. What sort of example does this send out to the youngsters who were watching the game on TV? The FA should impose the maximum punishment on Hazard in terms of a lengthy ban and impose some form of education to show him the error of his actions. The fact that the ball boy possibly provoked him into doing it should be in no way used as justification for Hazard's actions! Hazard is a professional footballer and more importantly a role model and should act accordingly while on the pitch!
I don't post much on here but some of the posts on this thread have really got my goat! I don't care what that ballboy did as a PROFESSIONAL you don't behave like that. I work in a school and sometimes teachers really get on my tits but I don't lash out at them verbally or physically because I am a professional. In all walks of life if you have a problem you bring it to the attention of your line manager (or in this case referee) you never deal with it yourself in this kind of fashion. If you watch the replays from all the angles it's pretty clear the ballboy gets the ball, Hazard goes after it, knocks the boy over who then lands on the ball and eventually Hazard boots the kid in the ribs (no contact with the ball from what I could see). Some players roll around like they've been hit by a car week in week out if another so much as sneezes near them so why shouldn't the kid stay down he was probably at least winded and secondly probably in shock at being ASSAULTED.
I think it's fair to say that both parties acted poorly in the situation but have to agree that Eden Hazard has well and truly overstepped the mark and rightly was/will be disciplined similar to my stance on the Leeds & Kirkland incident - no player should be put in danger from the public and in this circumstance the roles are reversed and regardless of whether he hit him with a brick or tickled him with a feather it is the same scenario no player should ever confront or forcibly engage with a fan, there just isn't the reason to do so during a football match (especially when it becomes such a Media furor) It is not up to Hazard to get involved in any situation with a non player and I have to applaud the ref for dealing with the situation in the way he did
" What Hazard SHOULD have done was to bring this to the attention of the referee and not just sticking his boot in! " I see another person who has only viewed the incident......... not the game. The Chelsea players brought it to the referees mind SEVERAL times during the game. Oscar and Hazard went ballistic at different points of the match about it. Lampard had a word too. The ball boy even premeditated the incident, had it planned, and people are STILL sticking up for the little runt. Incredible. The lad is an absolute disgrace, and I for one will be delighted when he receives a horrible tackle from someone that he can do them pathetic faces about for real. Sad twonk he is. The other person people are forgetting in all this, is the referee. " I have to applaud the ref for dealing with the situation in the way he did " He had the Chelsea players warn him SEVERAL times during the game, when he didn't do a damn thing about it. He certainly should not be reffing a top game for several years. If he had handled the match properly, again, the situation would NOT have arose.
You sound like a Chelsea fan Westy... Though I do agree that the lad is in the wrong and I'm sure will be given plenty of stick for being a bit of a girl and crying on National T.V. and should also be relived of his 'ball laying on' duties that said there is no place for violence or contact in the world of Football. Whether the Ref was having a mare or not the player(s) in question are in no position to take matters into their own hands and (generally?) Referees are accurate when stopping the clock when the ball is dead for a substantial amount of time. My question is would you in your line of work do that to a client, customer etc. rather than bring it to someone else's attention. If the answer is 'Yes' then what do you do? As I would love to do it too
I hadn't realised the Chelsea players had already warned the officials. If that's the case then Hazard was entitled to do what he did. In fact he should have kicked his face off without any fear of reprisal. If the FA needs to get one thing sorted, it's the behaviour of these 'so called' ballboys.
Westlake, as someone who did see the whole game, Chelsea were impotent and had no right to complain about anything. Rather than going complaining to the ref about something that goes on all the time the Chelsea players should've put a shift in. They could've played another twenty minutes and it was always Swansea who looked like scoring and from the first ten minutes their place in the final never looked in doubt. You only have to look at the lacklustre Chelsea move that resulted in the ball going over to Charlie Morgan.
Yeah right team went through and Chelsea were poor! I doubt we'll ever see an incident like this ever again.
