Frank Lampard said he was stunned to see Marcelo Bielsa and Leeds United win the FIFA Fair Play Award despite the “spygate” scandal that rocked the Championship club.
Leeds boss Bielsa and his club were recognized at the world governing body’s annual award ceremony in Milan, Italy, for allowing Aston Villa to score an uncontested goal during a second-tier match last season.
However, Leeds were also fined ￡200,000 (US$245,779) and given a severe reprimand by the English Football League after Bielsa sent a member of his staff to spy on a Derby training session.
Photo: AFP
Chelsea boss Lampard, who was Derby manager at the time of Leeds’ undercover operation in January last year, branded the Fair Play decision “strange.”
Asked on Friday if he choked on his breakfast when he heard the news, Lampard replied: “I did smile. Do we know who votes for these things?”
“What happened with spygate was very well documented and then they got fined, the rules changed slightly because of it,” he said. “I felt it was improper.”
“To get a fair play award off the back of that is. I thought it was irony at first,” he said. “It was a strange decision for them to win that. I think everyone had the same reaction [to the fair play award], to be fair, because a lot of news was put to Spygate.”
In April, Leeds allowed Villa to walk the ball into their net at Elland Road.
Angry scenes had broken out minutes earlier after Leeds looked set to stop play because of an injury to Jonathan Kodjia before playing on and scoring through Mateusz Klich.
However, Lampard did not think that was enough to justify the FIFA prize.
“It was quite right that they give Villa the opportunity to score, quite right to level out the balance of what had happened,” he said.
Elsewhere, the Nicaraguan Football Federation (Fenifut) has apologized for questioning the authenticity of the awards and said that it made a mistake when sending its votes to FIFA.
Shortly after the awards ceremony on Monday, Nicaragua captain Juan Barrera said that in spite of FIFA documents saying he voted for winner Lionel Messi, Barrera did not take part in the poll.
However, Fenifut, after backing Barrera’s claims, said that it erroneously put Barrera’s name on the form, when the player who voted was left-back Manuel Rosas.
“Fenifut would like to make it clear this was a misunderstanding,” it said in a statement. “Fenifut would like to apologize.”
The claims — along with a mistake by the Egyptian Football Association which meant that votes for Mohamed Salah were not counted — cast a pall over the results announced in Milan on Monday.
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