The Leeds United players under fire for ignoring fans at their team hotel on Sunday have been defended by one of the youngsters they seemingly snubbed.
As if the backlash from their damaging 4-1 defeat at Bournemouth on Sunday wasn't bad enough, the first team squad were lambasted further on Monday when footage emerged of them blanking their own supporters as they left their team hotel for the game. Their actions were savaged by the likes of Piers Morgan, who branded the players "Selfish, arrogant p****s."
Leeds later released a statement on their club website which expressed remorse at what transpired, but that prompted further fury as pundit Gary Neville tweeted : “This isn’t a message to Leeds players it’s to all players/teams apologising. No-one is falling for sanitised/vanilla PR guff anymore. Speak from the heart and better on video so fans can see your faces.”
But now one eight-year-old fan, and his parents, have moved to set the record straight. On the footage, Dylan Wale was seen dressed in Leeds kit waving at players, only to be seemingly ignored as they headed for the exit door. All however, was not as it seemed.
"Some of them waved at me and some of them didn't," he told Good Morning Britain . Dad John then weighed in, arguing the footage was misleading: "What you got to remember is that the video is just a tiny snapshot of what happened," he added.
"In actual fact, in the video you can see Max Wober looks like he's blanking him but in actual fact he didn't, he actually smiled. And we've got a list of players who actually smiled, fist bumped, and waved."
Sure enough, he then named 10 separate players who acknowledged his son, and revealed that manager Javi Gracia actually stopped, bent down, and tickled his chin as a show of appreciation. And he also argued that those that were "in the zone," were in that mode because of the importance of the match, and not ignorance.
"Leeds players needed to be focussed the other day," continued John. "They were running behind for starters, and they were told not to talk to anyone by the staff that were then. They were following orders and some broke protocol. The top and bottom of this is that Dylan had a fantastic day and we woke up yesterday absolutely gobsmacked (by the headlines)."
Regardless, the saga has proved an unwelcome distraction amid the ongoing turmoil at Elland Road. The club remains outside the bottom three on goal difference, but interim boss Gracia is expected to be sacked on Tuesday with Sam Allardyce tipped to take charge for the remaining four league games.
