Football Federation Australia CEO David Gallop has condemned Lukas Neill’s outburst at the Socceroos Costa Rica match, saying he expected better behaviour from the veteran player.
Neill, 35, was booed by a section of the crowd late in the game and turned to the grandstand and screamed, “what are you f###ing booing for?”.
“The action of swearing and reacting like that to a section of the crowd was unacceptable,” Gallop said this week.
“While that kind of crowd behaviour is not what we want to see, Lucas should have let it slide. In the cool light of the next few days I expect he will realise that.”
The incident followed after a tough week for the skipper, following media speculation over his role in the squad and whether he should still hold the captaincy. He fell short of apologising for his actions.
“Towards the end of the game I think a few people had some courage juice and they started to boo me and only me when I was on the ball and I can’t tolerate that,” Neill said this week.
“I’m Australian, coming to Australia to play for Australia and to be booed by Australians, it’s unacceptable.
“But what it is, and these guys don’t understand, it’s detrimental to the team.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys who have put in an amazing performance, we were winning a game 1-0 against a team that’s qualified for the World Cup and
we’ve put in a display that’s worthy of plenty of cheer and to hear boos, it’s unacceptable.”
Neill admits he was wrong to swear but is standing by his actions despite strong condemnation from former Socceroos including Robbie Slater and Mark Bosnich.
“I can apologise for swearing but we have to stamp that kind of thing out now because this is an exciting time for Australia and unfortunately it’s tarnished what should have been an exciting and amazing night for Ange Postecoglou and the Socceroos and Australia,” he said.
“It’s just silly, it’s disrespectful, we’re all very proud Australians but we should all act the Australian way and that is to get behind each other and support the green and gold.
“It’s an isolated incident, it’s never happened before in my career, I hope it never happens again.
“I’m passionate about Australia and I’m passionate about what’s happened last night, so there’ll be no apology from me.”
