Mail Sport’s Football Editor Ian Ladyman called for Nottingham Forest assistant coach Steven Reid to be banned from the touchline for the rest of the season after his foul-mouthed attack on referee Paul Tierney during his side’s clash with Liverpool.
Reid has been banned for two matches and will pay a £5,000 fine, after being shown a red card by Tierney on the day for his response the Reds’ late winner at the City Ground at the start of the month.
Darwin Nunez’s goal came after Tierney had handed the ball to Liverpool despite the Tricky Trees having had possession when play was stopped for an injury.
The coach called Tierney a ‘****’ a number of times, he told the independent Regulatory Commission, as well as referring to the officiating team as ‘you f****** lot’.
Forest were handed a £75,000 fine for failure to control their staff, but on Mail Sport’s It’s All Kicking Off podcast on Thursday, Ladyman stressed that Reid’s punishment had not gone far enough.
Steven Reid has been handed a £5,000 fine and a two-match touchline ban after his conduct during Nottingham Forest’ clash with Liverpool
He was sent off after his controversially lost late on to their visitors at the City Ground in March
Sparks flew after referee Paul Tierney had mistakenly given the ball to Liverpool after an injury to Ibrahima Konate
‘It’s about the knock-on effect this can have further down the pyramid, grassroots refereeing,’ Ladyman’s co-host Chris Sutton began. ‘When you hear a Premier League coach speak to a referee in that way and get a measly fine, which he won’t bat an eyelid to, I think that sends a terrible, terrible message.
‘Language like that, you have to set a precedent, you have to be strong. They have to make an example out of Steven Reid.’
But Sutton admitted: ‘There are players on a weekly basis in the Premier League and across leagues all around the world who use similar language to referees, and who get away with it as well.
‘He should be banned – I’d ban him for a season.’
Ladyman agreed, adding: ‘I’d certainly take him off the touchline for the rest of this season. I think it’s abysmal. It’s abysmal.
‘It’s appalling behavior. It’s the type of behavior that takes our game into the gutter. It embarrasses our game in the eyes of the people who watch it, people who play it, people have to referee it on a Saturday at the top level, but also on parks and pitches around the country.
‘It embarrasses us in the eyes of other sports where participants manage to behave themselves, manage to keep a civil tongue.’
While Sutton was quick to add that other sports have similar issues with talking back to referees, Ladyman was keen to state: ‘You use that language to a referee on the rugby field, on the cricket field, on a tennis court, your feet don’t touch the ground Chris, and you know that.’
After the officiating error Darwin Nunez scored to ensure the Reds left with all three points
Forest’s owner Evangelos Marinakis was one of a number of the club’s personnel who swarmed onto the pitch after the match
Tierney told the independent commission that Reid had called him a ‘****’ at least three times
Ladyman went as far as to say that coaches ‘shouldn’t be on the field at the end of the game’ and wondered why there weren’t ‘some kind of regulations that prevents this kind of mass invasion of the playing surface.’
Offering the last word on the subject, Sutton doubled down on his assertion that despite Reid likely being aware that he had made a mistake, it is important for the game that the Premier League makes an example of the Forest coach.
‘Just throwing out a measly fine, that’s not going to impact anybody across any level,’ Sutton continued. ‘This is the last time I’ll say: it’s the knock-on effect it has a grassroots level which worries me.
‘If coaches can get away with with using the c-word towards referees, God help us.’
