Wrexham and Republic of Ireland centurion James McClean has confirmed he threw a punch at a Cardiff fan in self-defence before last week’s all-Wales encounter in the Carabao Cup.<\/p>\n
The teams met for the first time in 21 years last Tuesday, when the League One side beat the high-profile Red Dragons 2-1 to earn a quarter-final <\/a>against Chelsea.<\/p>\n Reports subsequently emerged that McClean swung at a Cardiff fan before the SToK Cae Ras clash, with the the 36-year-old confirming to talkSPORT that an incident took place.<\/p>\n McClean alleges he was confronted in the players’ car park by four Cardiff fans who “started running their mouths off”, with the winger saying he reacted after their second jibe.<\/p>\n “Words were said,” McClean told talkSPORT. “One of them, a tall chap with glasses, made a hostile move towards me… I’m in my workplace and I feel I should never feel threatened in that workplace.<\/p>\n “So instead, I wasn’t waiting for him to make the first swing, so I did. Four men, one of me.<\/p>\n “People need to understand just because we play football doesn’t mean people can try and take liberties without their actions having consequences.<\/p>\n “That was it. Nothing further happened. And the situation was dealt with.”<\/p>\n The incident is reportedly not being investigated by police. North Wales Police have been contacted by the PA news agency.<\/p>\n Wrexham said in a statement to PA: “Wrexham AFC are aware of an incident involving a first-team player and a visiting supporter ahead of our match against Cardiff City, which has been reported to the relevant authorities.<\/p>\n “We will be making no further comment on the matter at this stage.”<\/p>\n Wrexham face Portsmouth at Fratton Park in the Championship on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n Watch Republic of Ireland v Uzbekistan in the FIFA Under-17 World Cup on Saturday from 3.35pm on RT\u00c92 and the RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport<\/p>\n Watch the Sports Direct FAI Cup final, Shamrock Rovers v Cork City, on Sunday from 2pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport. Listen to live commentary on Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n \n Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wrexham and Republic of Ireland centurion James McClean has confirmed he threw a punch at a Cardiff fan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-123727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}