He is 17. Apparently his dad is a Swansea Director. His tweet is really pissing some people off. #timewasting
At one point it almost looks like Foy turns to his AR and then turns back and point blank asks Hazard "did you kick him", at which point Hazard says "yeah, but he wouldn't give the ball back" and Foy responds "well, then you have to go". I'm obviously not a lip reader and those weren't the exact words said but it does seem like Foy directly asked Hazard about it after Foy looks at his AR and then starts talking to Hazard, doesn't it?
Here's a camera angle that suggests Hazard's primary intention was to get the ball out from under the kid, rather than hurt him: http://i.minus.com/iIAIp5HzuacOL.gif I'm not a Chelsea fan, but come on, guys. That kid was light-years out of line. The piling-on that Hazard is getting is a little ridiculous.
I cut in line making you wait an extra 30 seconds at McDonalds, and therefore 30 seconds late to work. Yes I'm a jerk, but does that mean you should kick me in the gut/ribs? Red card all day. Give him more than 3 to make a point.
Ok,,,,the kid was being cheeky. So what! Hazard is the professional. Referee had the clock and could add time. As much as I understand that Hazard wanted to get the ball back and the Ball boy was being an A hole, Hazard is still the professional. IMHO I want to believe the referee was looking for wiggle room but there isn't any here. Player kicks at spectator ( yes, I know he was a ball boy and he was being an A hole) VC - send off
I don't think the ball boy would have fallen over if Hazard had not interfered with him and his duty by trying to get hold of the ball. What should (could) the kid have done once he was on the ground with the ball under him? The reaction of some of the other Chelsea players who ran to help the ball boy is very revealing. They knew it was uncalled for. In any case it seems as though there was going to be a sub before the goal kick, so there could not have been a quicker restart. The entire incident was Hazard's fault. Period, the end! He deserves all he has coming to him. PH
It does? Since when does a camera angle, from the wrong side of the incident, at an elevated view and--I believe, so far--the one from the further possible distance prove more reliable than all the others from at or near field level? I can't tell a thing from this .gif, but I certainly can see what was happening in all the others. Where, in this forum, has there been "piling-on" Hazard? I think the worst I've read on this thread, about him, is that he "lost his mind" and "deserves a long ban." If you don't think kicking at a ball boy, in a professional setting, is "losing your mind" and that it is not an act that deserves a long ban (let's define long as longer than the typical 3-game violent conduct ban), then I don't know what to tell you. And the kid, maybe (likely, I'd say) was out-of-line. But "light-years" out of line? Ball boys (or ball "person" in this case, as it's now being say he's 17) from the local high school game to UCL matches, tend to take an extra second or two when it benefits the home team. It's a fact of life that any professional has dealt with at some point in his career. How often do they get kicked by one of those professionals? So who's the one that is "light-years" out of line? I'm shocked that there is any defense of Hazard here--at all. I understand the, "hey, that ballboy went a bit over the line there" argument, especially when you see his tweet. Fine. Ban him from future duties and maybe, if an investigation says it's warranted, sanction the club. But Hazard didn't know about that tweet when he kicked him, did he? How on earth can his act be viewed as anything but violent conduct against an individual who a player should never be showing any aggression toward?
What on earth is biased about that statement. You kick someone like that while the ball is out of play--an opponent, a teammate, a ball boy, a fan, etc.--and it's a red card. It doesn't matter if it's the local U8 game or the World Cup. I don't understand what you're getting at. EDIT: ah, and now I see your follow-up post.
Good read ...with references to "others" who have "crossed the line" http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/2894?cc=5901
In my opinion, yes, it suggests that Hazard was trying to get the ball out from under him. He makes a kicking motion, the ball pops out from under the kid's body, and Hazard pretty much immediately steps over him and gets the ball, as if he were anticipating that as the desired outcome of what he was doing. That, combined with the extremely limited force of the kick, indicates to me that violence was not his primary motivation. Yes, that, and someone suggesting that the police department should get involved for something that barely rises above the level of some horseplay I'd engage in with my 8-year-old nephew. Yeah, this is where we disagree. Ballboys taking a little extra time to return the ball -- that's "a fact of life any professional has dealt with." This kid was intentionally *lying on the ball* to prevent an opposing player from getting it (and this is after he was openly tweeting earlier in the day about his intention to waste time for Swansea). Do you not agree that this is completely inappropriate and beyond the pale as far as what a player can expect to encounter during a game? And this is to say nothing of the fact that Hazard's kick, even if it wasn't primarily intended to extract the ball from under the kid, was really not forceful at all, and the kid clearly milked it for all it was worth. So look, if the letter of the law says you have to send him off, then whatever, but when you look at the whole picture, I don't think his behavior was that outrageous. One more question: Is there any guidance for referees on how to handle this stuff (non-playing team employees actively interfering with the course of a match and players interacting with non-playing team employees)?
Barcelona ball boys are notorious for throwing two balls onto the field for opponents throw ins and goal kicks at the waning minutes of a tight game. It is part and parcel of professional soccer. I don't see Real Madrid players kicking them. The ref can simply add more time and FAs can sanction the clubs. It is completely indefensible for a PROFESSIONAL player to take matters like this into his own hands. Nothing good can happen.
Violent Conduct – Initiation and Retaliation As defined in the U.S. Soccer publication “Advice to Referees on the Laws of the Game,” violent conduct occurs when the following is present: A player (or substitute) is guilty of aggression towards an opponent or towards any other person (a teammate, the referee, an assistant referee, a spectator, etc.). The player(s) are not contesting for the ball (the ball is not within playing distance). The ball can be in or out of play. The aggression can occur either on or off the field of play Sourced from........ http://www.thereflink.com/USSOCCER/pages/law12.html
Violent Conduct – Initiation and Retaliation As defined in the U.S. Soccer publication “Advice to Referees on the Laws of the Game,” violent conduct occurs when the following is present: A player (or substitute) is guilty of aggression towards an opponent or towards any other person (a teammate, the referee, an assistant referee, a spectator, etc.). The player(s) are not contesting for the ball (the ball is not within playing distance). The ball can be in or out of play. The aggression can occur either on or off the field of play Sourced from........ http://www.thereflink.com/USSOCCER/pages/law12.html
The kid was *lying on the ball* because Hazard came and put his hands on him. If Hazard doesn't come over there, this isn't happening. Hazard instigates things, and Hazard kicks a ballboy. Hazard 100% created the mess for himself by running over there, putting his hands on him, and trying to take the ball. And like PH asks, what could the boy have done now that he has fallen over (I still think Hazard pushed him, accidentily perhaps in his rush to get the ball, but I think he knocks him over) and Hazard is fighting him for the ball that he is on top of? It's not like he is going to be able to get up with Hazard over him. How can you possibly think that what the ballboy did is some "beyond the pale" thing that the game doesn't need, but yet you can't see Hazard's act as outrageous? That, in my opinion, is ridiculous. The ball boy crossed a line, yes, fair. I think Hazard caused that, but that's irrelevant. Hazard went WAY over the line. And here you are saying "I don't think [Hazard's] behavior was that outrageous". Baffling. As far as guidance goes, if the ball boy would have done something completely over the top (like run on the field to stop a goal), he'd be removed. I think he was removed after this incident, in this case, but that was more likely than not a product of him getting kicked as opposed to him doing anything wrong. As far as players interacting with outside people, an act of violent conduct on an outside person is a red card, as Foy correctly gave.
I'm having trouble taking this seriously. You are using a bad, inconclusive angle, to reach a conclusion when we have much better evidence that shows the conclusion is wrong. Look, the ballboy was on top of the ball. So any kick that goes under the ballboy is going to help make it look like the desire was the kick the ball out from under him. That's the pretext. But... A) he clearly kicked him when you see the other angle and B) it doesn't matter one bit if his alleged motivation was to kick the ball. You can't kick at a ball when someone is lying on top of it without having a pretty good chance of kicking the person. This is almost an insane argument. If this was at a stoppage and an opponent was lying on the ball so Chelsea couldn't take a free kick, and Hazard kicked that opponent, what would you say? I hope (though my hope might be misplaced since I've read your post here) that you would say yellow card to the opponent for delaying the restart and red card to Hazard for kicking the opponent. Any top referee in the world would dish out those two punishments. One piece of bad behavior (the timewasting) does not allow worse behavior (the violent conduct). Also, the use of the term "extremely limited force" is downright laughable. He kicks someone in the ribs hard enough with the intention to dislodge the ball from under him. Everything's relative, but he kicked him pretty hard all things being equal. He kicked him much harder than some other famous red cards for kicking an opponent--such as Beckham's at World Cup 98. I believe the police did get involved and the ball person declined to press charges. So the suggestion was not that absurd or laughable. If you physically assault or molest (and I'm using those terms by their dictionary definitions, not in the legal sense) another individual, particularly a minor, in a public setting... well, 9 times out of 10, the police are going to at least ask a question or two. No, I think we disagree much earlier than this. I find most of your thoughts on this matter frightening. But, to this point, no, I don't find it "beyond the pale." Timewasting happens in soccer. It probably happened 5+ other times in this game alone. No one went around kicking whomever they suspected of timewasting. Also, there was a substitution and there's no way Chelsea could have got the game moving any faster if the ball was delivered to the goal area by Hazard himself, as it was Swansea's goal kick. In short, nothing the kid did slowed the game at all. Did he show himself to be a bit of a jerk by lying on the ball? Sure. But Hazard was the one who rushed over to engage in the first place. Whether you think the ballboy deliberately fell or was bundled over (it's hard to say from the replays) is irrelevant--Hazard created the situation by rushing over. All of the talk I'm hearing about trying to excuse or justify Hazard's actions seem to come from a fantasy land. To summarize, I've heard the tweet used as an excuse... well, no one knew about that at the time, right? So that's out the window. I've heard that the ballboy was delaying the restart. But, of course, it was Swansea's kick and there was a Chelsea substitution up, so that was false. And then there's the "he's lying on the ball, so Hazard had to get it." Tell me, again, of all those cases where an opponent gets to kick a player in the ribs because he's lying on the ball and how that's an excuse that gets you out of a red card. The kid may be a Class A jerk. And that doesn't matter one bit. It's just like a retaliation when provoked on the field. If you commit violent conduct, you're sent off. There's absolutely no excuse for what Hazard did. This entire paragraph is frightening to me. I don't know what else to say because I think I've picked apart all the individual points here above, so there's nothing much for me to add. But saying Hazard's behavior is not "that outrageous" is, to me, an outrageous statement in itself. Professional soccer players can't go around kicking ballboys. Full stop. And if they do, we should be outraged by that behavior. Ha, I love how your "one more question" comes when your only other question was a loaded "do you not agree..." sort of query. Anyway... Higher level competitions like the EPL would have guidelines in their referee manual (or similar document) about how ballpersons are nominated and how they are controlled. In US professional leagues, for example, I believe the fourth official is supposed to meet with them ahead of the match and outline their duties with them. I can't remember if there are explicit instructions anywhere for disciplining a ball person, but the referee always has the right to dismiss any person from the field, so they could--and would--do so if a ballboy was interfering with a match or failing in his duties.
It's a kid who is calling himself "the king of all ball boys". We're taking this tweet seriously? Have we gone mad? Hazard was an idiot and Chelsea should be ashamed...AGAIN. Unbelievable.
As I said via private message, you either know what you're doing or you're being deliberately obtuse. "Contesting for the ball" means when the ball is in play. And it means against an opponent. If you were a certified referee like NC United Soccer, you'd know that. But since you're not, you should probably refrain from such inane posts because it really does look like you're deliberately trolling the board.