Cristiano Ronaldo has accepted the FA’s improper conduct charge for knocking a mobile phone out of the hand of a young fan.
At his lunchtime press conference, United boss Erik ten Hag claimed Ronaldo “will not accept it” when asked what was the Portugal star’s response to his FA charge.
Ten Hag’s English is still far from perfect and United have clarified that the Dutchman meant to say that Ronaldo would not accept a lengthy ban.Ten Hag and United will strongly support Ronaldo’s claims that there were mitigating factors and back him in his fight that he should not be severely punished.
Ronaldo was filmed slapping the device out of the hand of an Everton supporter as he made his way back to the dressing room after the Reds’ defeat at Goodison Park in April.
Ronaldo was cautioned by the police over the incident and apologised to the teenage fan, who is autistic, immediately after the incident on April 9. The FA charged with him breaching rule E3, which relates to improper or violent conduct.
The Portugal legend, who scored his 700th club goal in Sunday’s win at Everton, had until Monday to respond to the FA charge and United say he has accepted it.
Ronaldo, 37, feels there were contributing circumstances and alluded to this when he apologised publicly for his behaviour on Instagram at the time. He wrote in his post that it was “never easy to deal with emotions in difficult moments such as the one we are facing”. Ronaldo is expected to have a personal hearing where witnesses will be allowed to give evidence to back his calls that he should not be clobbered with a multiple-match ban.
The boy's mum, Sarah Kelly, told the Daily Mirror in August how she was left in tears after Ronaldo phoned her vowing to fight any legal case. Ronaldo accepted a police caution for assault and criminal damage. She said he was ordered to pay £200 but that the ticking off has meant he “has got away with it”.
Sarah, of Merseyside – who gave a statement to police after the assault – said: “The phone rang again and a man said, ‘Hello this is Cristiano Ronaldo.’
“He asked me if I would like to come down and meet his family. He said, ‘I’m not a bad dad.’ I said to him, ‘I never said you were a bad dad.’ He said, ‘I had a terrible upbringing, I lost my dad.’ I said to him, ‘Everybody has a sob story Ronaldo, I lost my dad young, I’ve had cancer.’
“He kept calling me Jack and didn’t even know my name and I said, ‘My name is Sarah’ and he said, ‘Oh, Sarah, I’m sorry.’ He never referred to Jacob by his name either, it was always ‘the boy’. ‘I know the boy’s got problems,’ he said. I told him, ‘He hasn’t got a problem, he has a disability, you’re the one with the problem.’
"He said ‘I’m sorry’ but then added, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’ He said he hadn’t ‘kicked, killed or punched anybody’. That lit my fire, I was raging and my heart was pumping and I told him, ‘So you smacking my son’s hand and bruising it, is not hurting anybody?’
“He said I don’t want it in the media or press and the court. He said he had a good legal team, he would win and he would fight me all the way. He said he knew how to play the media.”
