Ian Holloway has hit back at suggestions that he holds the EU responsible for football’s new handball rules, saying “I’m not that stupid”.
On Tuesday, the former QPR manager said of the new rules: “I think that’s people telling us what we should do with our game. Now, they should stop doing that. I hope we get out of Brexit, because that’s what we all voted for, and sort that out, because you cannot have someone telling us how to do our own game.”
“I don’t think that’s our boys making up that new change of law,” Holloway had told The Debate on Sky Sports – seemingly unaware the changes were instituted by Ifab. The International Football Association Board’s five members are the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FAs, as well as Fifa.
Speaking to the Mirror on Wednesday, Holloway said: “People don’t listen. What I’ve said, and I can say it very clearly, is I’m sick and fed up of being told what to do by people who aren’t running our country.”
“Fifa and Uefa have brought these rules in, they told us we’ve got to use VAR. That I’ve got no problem with, but that handball rule that they’ve made up, I don’t want to listen to them. That’s nonsensical.
“It’s just in the same way that I’m sick and fed up of us in the UK being told what to do by the EU. Brexit is nothing to do with the football rules, is it? I’m not that stupid, so I suggest people wash their ears out and listen.”
The new handball rules have drawn widespread coverage after Gabriel Jesus’s late goal for Manchester City against Tottenham being disallowed. The strike was dramatically chalked off after a VAR check established that City’s Aymeric Laporte had handled the ball.
Holloway had looked set to add the handball rule to a long list of problems that have been blamed on the EU – including the power of vacuum cleaners and the shape of bananas. The Premier League’s VAR hub is currently based in Stockley Park, Uxbridge and is not being controlled from Brussels – yet.
