Arsene Wenger called Anthony Taylor 'dishonest' to earn four game Arsenal touchline ban, FA report reveals

1/39
James Benge22 February 2017

The Football Association has revealed the reasoning behind Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger’s four game touchline ban after his side’s match with Burnley last month.

English football’s governing body has released its report into the incident, which saw Wenger sent to the stands after he had protested to fourth official Anthony Taylor over referee Jon Moss’ decision to award Burnley a stoppage time penalty for a foul by Francis Coquelin on Ashley Barnes.

Both Taylor and Moss said in their post-match reports that Wenger had called Taylor “dishonest to your federation”. When the Arsenal manager was told this was unacceptable he told the fourth official to “f*** off”.

The fourth official’s report subsequently revealed that Wenger had visited the officials’ changing room after the match to apologise.

Wenger admitted that he had used those words, saying that he “regretted the choice of language used” and was “very unhappy with his behaviour”.

Arsenal’s manager had also been seen pushing Taylor, an incident he claimed was an “instinctive” reaction to what he felt was an invasion of his personal space.

In their explanation for the four match ban the FA commission came to the conclusion that Wenger had called into question “the integrity of the officials”.

Wenger had immediately apologised for his behaviour in the post-match press conference, which Arsenal would go on to win 2-1 through Alexis Sanchez’s 98th minute penalty.

He was also obliged to explain why he had watched the game from the tunnel rather than the director’s box, explaining that he “thought he could go to the tunnel and watch the game from there”. This was partly explained by the absence of Arsenal’s senior steward from the Emirates.

Wenger, who also received a £25,000 fine, completed his touchline ban on February 11 as his side beat Hull City 2-0.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in