Exclusive: ‘Unacceptable’ Senegal slammed over pre-match incident vs England
Keith Hackett has criticised a number of aspects of the organisation around the kick-off of the international friendly between England and Senegal.
The former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA official exclusively told Football Insider that the delay to kick off in that match at the City Ground should not have been allowed.
Over the weekend, England produced a well below-par performance against minnows Andorra in World Cup qualification, where they could only claim a 1-0 win.
As a result, they will have been looking to put on a much more convincing showing when they took on Senegal at the home of Nottingham Forest on Tuesday night (10 June).
However, they would be made to wait for the opportunity to do that, as a result of an early delay to proceeding caused by the visitors.
Senegal leave England waiting for kick-off
That friendly between the two sides had been due to kick-off at 7:45pm, and while England were ready for that, their opponents were not.
Instead, Senegal were several minutes late out of their dressing room, when they were eventually ushered into the tunnel by match referee Stephanie Frappart.
As a result of that, the game would ultimately only kick off at 7:50pm, five minutes later than had been scheduled.
Now, Hackett has hit out at the fact that such a hold up to kick off was allowed to happen, even in a friendly match, criticising Senegal and those involved in overseeing the match for such a delay.
Keith Hackett fumes as match held up
Speaking to Football Insider about Senegal’s late exit from the dressing room ensuring that clash against England kicked off later than scheduled, the former referee said:
“Friendly or not a five minute delay to kick off is unacceptable and stronger action should have been taken by the FA officials and the referee.”
Once the game did get underway, Harry Kane opened the scoring for the Three Lions after just seven minutes.
However, Senegal would then respond with goals from Ismaila Sarr, Habib Diarra and Cheikh Sabaly to condemn England to a disappointing 3-1 defeat, their first ever loss against an African nation.
That has already started to raise some questions around manager Thomas Tuchel, with just a year to go until the World Cup gets underway.