Swansea v Chelsea [R]

EDIT: Forgot the [R] in title. Will a mod please fix that?









League Cup Semis, 2nd leg. Swansea up 2-0 on aggregate. Ball boy lays on ball trying to delay the game. Chelsea player kicks him and gets sent off. Hilarity ensues on twitter.

Chelsea FCVerified‏@chelseafc

Has football gone mad? Hazard is sent off for kicking the ball under a ball boy attempting to smother the ball rather than return it.#CFC

Wow...the ballboy was obviously in the wrong, but Hazard lost his mind.

And yes that is the OFFICIAL Chelsea FC twitter account.

Obviously Swansea needs punished for the ball boy doing this, but the fact that people are defending Hazard is rather disturbing.

No, "people" aren't defending him...Chelsea's official twitter feed is defending them, as you pointed out. I imagine about 99.9 percent of the reaction is going to be on par with my previous comment above.

I guess the concept of time being added on by the referee is foreign to the Belgian player? I got a better idea for Chelsea. Next time score some goals, and you won't have to kick the ball boy.

Curious -- does anyone know who the ball boys are? Are they jus kids who get a chance in a lifetime to be donw on the field, or are they direclty affiliated with the clubs?

I don't have the link for you, but the ballboy's twitter ahead of the match said "I'm needed for timewasting" or something of that ilk.

Hazard deserved to be sent off. Swansea should also be fined for failing to control the ballboy. It's very unprofessional for both Hazard and for Swansea.

Swansea shouldn't be fine a cent. The referee has a mechanism for the ball boy (or anyone) wasting time: adding time on to the end. Heck, if Hazard isn't all over the kid in the first place trying to get the ball back, they might have lost five or six seconds of time (which would then have been tacked on to the end if the referee deemed that this was a big time waster). It's not like the kid was going to fall over and hold the ball with no one around him. Instead, they play a man down because Hazard lost his mind for a moment.

I can't for the life of me figure out how anyone, even the most diehard of Chelsea fans, are defending Hazard, and then going on and spouting abuse at the boy on twitter (saw a few death threats). The mind boggles.

I hope Hazard gets a good, long ban for this one. Absolutely no place for this in the game. You can talk about bad tackles, diving, whatever, but there is NO REASON to be kicking a ball boy. Ever.

To be clear: I agree that Hazard should be banned. But no club should be employing ballboys who state in advance of the match that they intend to interfere in its proceedings in any way!

I agree on both counts -- if the club is providing the ball boys, the club needs to be held responsible for their behavior.

Here's the kid's tweet:

Charlie Morgan™ @CHARLIEM0RGAN
The king of all ball boys is back making his final appearance #needed #for #timewasting

But its not like before Hazard arrived on the scene there was some inordinate amount of time being wasted. The ball had been out of play three, maybe four seconds, and the boy had picked the ball up. If it had been out 10 seconds and the ball boy had been holding it the whole time, sure, I'm with y'all. But it hadn't. He had grabbed the ball after it had been out three or four seconds. In my opinion, the ball boy didn't do anything even close to wrong until hands were put on him, unless you count not running after every ball that goes out as doing something wrong. He picks up the ball, and all of a sudden Hazard has his hands on him, trying to get it off of him. That's where it gets ridiculous, and sure, after that, it was silly, but what in the world was Hazard doing? I'm not sure I fault the ball boy at all for this, I just don't see him as having done much, if anything, wrong. If I'm in the minority, I'm in the minority, but that's my opinion.

Hazard clearly pushed the boy over in the first place, which caused the kid to fall on the ball that he had just picked up. If Hazard had not gone over to the ball boy, the boy would have just given the ball to the Swansea keeper for the goal kick. Even if Hazard had got to the ball first, it was still a goal kick for Swansea, and the keeper could have wasted the usual time in taking the kick.

Players should realize that trying to get the ball to try to prevent timewasting when it is not their restart is a useless exercise. Just like trying to grab the ball away from a defender when they have just scored. The conceding team is going to take some time to take the kick off anyway.

Hazard was doubly stupid in this incident and the red card was the correct decision. Well done Chris Foy.

There may be more to come from this. As well as action from the FA which will probably be a long suspension, I can imagine that some lawyers are contacting the kid's parents right now. Chelsea have a big bank account. Also the Swansea PD could get involved as well. It looks like assault on a minor to me.

PH

Go to :30.

I think the parents might wantto reconsider the lawsuit.
There Seems to be some question about the Chelsea bankroll.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-pace-but-do-the-accounts-add-up-8303745.html

Wouldn't want to have to walk the streets and be known as the guy who broke the club.

Bullshit. They deserve a huge fine.

And that kid deserved some broken ribs. He looks 13 to 14 and knew exactly what he was doing.

The ball "boy" is drinking a Strongbow in his twitter profile pic, so I imagine he could file suit on his own account as an adult without the need for parental intervention.

Yeah, he took three seconds to pick up a soccer ball. He sure deserved to get pushed over and then kicked in the ribs! That'll teach him to not pick up the ball after two seconds.

Really?
Is this a new low on BS?

How about a YC at least here?

PH

You deserve a ban from this site

The kid doesn't deserve to be kicked, but he knew exactly what he was doing. And from the video, I don't see Hazard pushing the kid down, I see him falling on the ball to prevent Hazard from getting to it. What Hazard does afterwards is inexcusable, but what the kid did was definitely unsportsmanlike behavior.