Stephen Bradley has slammed the standard of refereeing in last night’s Turner’s Cross clash, where three of his players were shown red cards in Shamrock Rovers’ 1-0 defeat to Cork City.
And he has hit out at a small number of Leesiders fans who made obscene chants from outside Turner’s Cross - but overlooking the pitch.
“It’s disgusting. I’m going to put in a report to the police. Singing about my son…” said Bradley. “You take stick. As a football person, that comes with it. That’s your job and that’s fine. But speaking about a sick nine-year-old is disgusting and Cork City should be ashamed of them. I want them banned for life. That’s disgusting. That has no place in football or society. That’s disgusting behaviour.”
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Cork City immediately released a statement about the chants. “Cork City FC wish to unreservedly condemn the actions of a handful of individuals who directed disgusting abuse at Shamrock Rovers Manager Stephen Bradley from outside the stadium shortly after tonight’s match,” it read.
“The club will work with all relevant authorities to identify those involved and take the appropriate action against those involved. On behalf of the club, we wish to apologise to Mr. Bradley for the actions of these individuals.”
As for the performance of the match officials, Rovers’ Richie Towell was sent off in the first-half, and substitute Johnny Kenny and Sean Hoare were dismissed within minutes of each other in the second-half.
Bradley said of their performance: “I think that’s embarrassing. The officials are the worst I’ve ever seen, they really are,” he said. “Since the start of the season I’ve tried to stay quiet on it, but that would really worry me tonight, those four officials. They are not fit to referee in the league.
“The only way that referee knows how to manage is with his cards. Something needs to be looked at here, we talk about progressing the league and wanting to be better, but that’s disgraceful tonight. They need to look at assessors, it would make you think, what are they up to, those four tonight. That can’t be acceptable for this league, it’s embarrassing, they should never ref again in this league. It’s incredible.”
Bradley added: “That can’t be the standard of refereeing you have in this league. A good crowd here tonight and he ruins it. Two games he’s had with us tonight and he’s sent five players. Drogheda and tonight. Incredible. It feels like there is a manager out every week talking about this and they really need to look at it, because the standard is incredible. Embarrassing. Disgraceful. They need to be looked at. It’s getting to a point where there is a manager every week speaking about it and we can’t all be wrong.”
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