The mother of a young Everton fan has labelled Cristiano Ronaldo “really rude” after he took to social media to apologise for damaging the boy’s phone.
While walking down the tunnel following Manchester United’s 1-0 defeat to Frank Lampard’s side at Goodison Park, Ronaldo was filmed smacking a phone out of the supporter’s hand.
He later released a statement apologising to the supporter, Jacob Harding, and offered him the opportunity to come to a match at Old Trafford.
But Jacob’s mother, Sarah, said she was not happy with Ronaldo’s apology and insisted her son would not accept an invite to a Manchester United game.
Speaking to The Telegraph, she said: “The apology or lack of apology was what angered me even more. I thought, ‘How rude – you are telling everybody you have apologised and you haven’t’. OK, you have put it out to social media but… you should be apologising to my son.
“He [Ronaldo] had several hours to ponder on it. He should have found out our contact details… been private, said he had spoken to us and released something. I would have been happy with that. I was quite shocked United hadn’t put a statement out asking us to get in touch, just something a bit heartfelt, rather than Ronaldo saying the supporter can come to me.
“That comes across really, really rude to me. Why would we, as Everton fans, go to United? He put, ‘this supporter’. It doesn’t state if he was an Everton supporter or a United supporter. It’s just a very, very weak apology in my opinion.
“It was our first time [together at football]. Jacob is obsessed with Everton and football. It’s his passion. It just took a complete shine off the game, the win, the experience. I’m not even thinking of the day I had with him, the nice time before the incident. I’m just thinking of the last five seconds. It has completely spoilt it. It’s shocking.
“I did ask him: ‘Would you like to go? Ronaldo said we could go to United’. He said, ‘No, mum, I would never want to see him again’. That’s upsetting because Ronaldo was one of the reasons he wanted to go to the United game.”
Sarah said her son has dyspraxia as well as autism and has been struggling to sleep since the incident on Saturday afternoon. She also shared a picture on social media which showed that his hand appeared to be bruised.
