{"id":802997,"date":"2026-10-15T03:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802997\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T03:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:40:16","slug":"millwalls-alex-neil-criticised-for-his-comments-on-stoppage-for-alleged-racism-millwall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802997\/","title":{"rendered":"Millwall\u2019s Alex Neil criticised for his comments on stoppage for alleged racism | Millwall"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Millwall head coach, Alex Neil, has been criticised by the anti-racism campaign group Kick It Out after complaining that a stoppage in play over alleged racist abuse \u201ckilled the momentum\u201d in Tuesday\u2019s home defeat to Swansea City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Championship<\/a> fixture was suspended for around seven minutes after reports of abusive chants being aimed at the Swansea midfielder Eom Ji-sung. The referee, Edward Duckworth, halted the match in the 65th minute before speaking with both teams\u2019 managers, the fourth official and a safety officer.<\/p>\n

After the game, Neil told BBC Radio London<\/a>: \u201cI understand, obviously, there\u2019s been an incident. That\u2019s not something I\u2019m going to get involved in, that\u2019ll be for the authorities to deal with. But the fact that it stops the game, I just don\u2019t see the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe referee was wanting to speak to whoever the safety officer is, and when he spoke to him [the game] restarted. That\u2019s partly my frustration. I want to get the game restarted, I want to get the game played. It needs to get dealt with \u2026 [but] stopping the game doesn\u2019t deal with anything. All it does is kill the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement published on social media, Kick It Out<\/a> said: \u201cPlayer welfare should always take precedence over the momentum or flow of a match, and it\u2019s essential that managers and all leaders recognise this and set the tone with their language so that everyone can stand up to discrimination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed to hear reports of racist abuse towards Swansea\u2019s Eom Ji-sung during Tuesday\u2019s Championship game at Millwall<\/a>. Both clubs have condemned the incident, and it\u2019s positive that Millwall and match officials followed the right protocols so that action can be taken to identify any individual responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement added: \u201cProtocols are in place to help match and security officials respond appropriately. That ensures players are protected and key details are captured so that accountability can follow, regardless of how long it takes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The match referee, Edward Duckworth, speaks to both managers during the break in play. Photograph: Ben Whitley\/PA<\/p>\n

Millwall have not responded to the Kick it Out statement, but said on Tuesday: \u201cThe club operates a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of discriminatory abuse. Any individual found to have engaged in such behaviour will face the strongest possible action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe club is working alongside the relevant authorities to establish the facts and is unable to comment further as tonight\u2019s alleged incident is the subject of an ongoing police investigation, which the club fully supports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swansea won the game 1-0, with Ronald scoring a late winner after the restart, and Neil admitted afterwards: \u201cIf we score, I probably don\u2019t feel this way.\u201d The 45-year-old added that the alleged abuse \u201chas been reported and it\u2019s not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Swansea head coach, V\u00edtor Matos, praised the referee and Millwall\u2019s club staff for their responses to the incident. \u201cThe referee followed the protocol for these sort of situations, they did the right thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillwall did the right thing by announcing there is no place for this sort of thing. I\u2019m happy with how it was handled, but really sad that it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Millwall head coach, Alex Neil, has been criticised by the anti-racism campaign group Kick It Out after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-802997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}