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West Ham 'aware' of video showing Declan Rice accusing Europa League referee of ‘corruption’

Rice confronted referee Jesus Gil Manzano in the tunnel as West Ham crashed out of the Europa League semi-finals, with both Aaron Cresswell and David Moyes seeing red against Frankfurt

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West Ham United’s Declan Rice remonstrates with referee Jesus Gil Manzano (Photo: Reuters)
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West Ham have said they are aware of a video circulating on social media that shows Declan Rice accusing referee Jesus Gil Manzano of “corruption”.

Rice made the claims during West Ham’s Europa League semi-final defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday.

The Hammers lost the tie 3-1 on aggregate, and were down to 10 men after 19 minutes in Thursday’s second leg – which they lost 1-0 – when Aaron Cresswell was sent off.

Rice then received a yellow card for dissent just before half-time, while David Moyes was also sent to the stands with 10 minutes remaining after kicking a ball in the direction of a ball boy.

The timing of the video is not entirely clear, either at half-time or after the match has concluded, but Rice – who called the referee’s decisions “poor” when talking to BT Sport afterwards – can be seen in the tunnel venting his frustration with the Uefa official.

“Ref, ref, it’s so poor,” he is heard saying. “All night, it’s so bad. How can you be that bad? Honestly you’ve probably been f**king paid, f**king corruption.”

In response to the video, a West Ham spokesperson said: “The club is aware of the video circulating on social media but will not be commenting further until the referee’s report from the Uefa Europa League semi-final second leg against Eintracht Frankfurt has been considered.”

Meanwhile, Moyes – who apologised for his own actions on Thursday – said Rice’s frustration was due to the heat of the moment.

“It just shows you how much all the players cared,” Moyes said.

“We all cared very much last night. We felt as if we had been treated quite badly overall and that is what happens.

“If you know about football, everybody is emotional so unless you’re in the heat of it sometimes people don’t understand how it feels.

“Last night, we had a group of players who were really connected, trying to win the game and felt it was very difficult under lots of different circumstances.”

Speaking after the match, Rice told West Ham TV the defeat was “sickening”, and likened it to England’s Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy.

“We’ve proved as a club – as a set of players and as fans – that we deserve those European nights. We deserve the hype,” he said.

“We’ve beaten some great teams over two legs but it just wasn’t meant to be. You can’t go back and change things now. It’s sickening and it’s gutting, but we’ll be back and we’re ready to have a strong end to the season now.”

He added: “We’ve got to look at it over the two legs. The first goal within the first minute in the first game – that’s a killer because then you’re already trying to get something back. Then we get the equaliser but they score again and silence the place. It was an uphill to climb because we knew we’d have to come here and win.

“But there was a genuine confidence that we could win this game. I think we’ve proved tonight that, if we had eleven men, I do think we would have beaten them.

“I honestly do, and I know I can stand here now and say that, but they had nothing up until their goal. That was the key and if we hadn’t have conceded that goal, we would have had something to hold on to with them only being a goal ahead.

“It’s sickening. The lads are gutted. I’m gutted, but I’ve been in this position before. I’ve lost in the European Championship Final and we couldn’t go any lower than that, but this is as low as that as well. But I’ve learned from that and the lads need to learn that we will be back. These are great experiences from our careers, and I’m sure we’ll come again.”

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