Kevin De Bruyne has apologised to a ballboy after the Belgium midfielder launched a foul-mouthed tirade during his side Wolfsburg’s 1-1 draw against Eintracht Frankfurt on Tuesday night.
The former Chelsea player De Bruyne, who scored twice in Wolfsburg’s 4-1 victory over the reigning Bundesliga champions Bayern last week, was rushing to take a throw-in during the latter stages of the match at Eintracht’s Commerzbank Arena with his team trailing 1-0.
The German newspaper Bild reported that the 23-year-old signed for £18m last January shouted: “Give me the ball, you motherfucker”, when the ballboy failed to throw him it back to him. His words were picked up by pitchside television microphones during the match, before De Bruyne went on to score the equaliser and pick up his sixth goal of the season.
“So much of what you hear from Bundesliga players is questionable,” said Eintracht’s Under-16 coach Jürgen Hickert, who has organised ballboys for the senior team for a decade.
“In spite of their money and success they should be role models. [Wolfsburg sporting director] Klaus Allofs said he is a good boy normally. Then he should talk to him about certain practices.”
Bild reported that De Bruyne has since apologised and admitted that the sentence had slipped out of his mouth “in the heat of the moment”. He intends to send a signed shirt to the ballboy in question by way of saying sorry.
The Belgium team-mate Eden Hazard became embroiled in a similar incident two years ago when he was sent off for kicking out at a Swansea ballboy Charlie Morgan in the Capital One Cup semi-final second leg at Liberty Stadium.
