‘Abusing me non-stop’ – Eric Dier opens up on decision to march into the crowd in 2020
Eric Dier has explained his decision to go into the crowd at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium back in 2020 to protect his brother, Partirck, admitting that he was disappointed with the way the FA handled the incident.
The incident occurred after Tottenham’s FA Cup loss to Norwich, with Dier being seen jumping into the crowd at the full-time whistle when he noticed that his brother was having an altercation with a fan.
The centre-back was hit with a four-match ban and was fined £40,000 even after the spectator in question had told the police that he had not felt threatened by the Spurs man during the incident (Football.London).
Dier has now opened up on the events of that evening, explaining that his brother was not too happy that he decided to step into the crowd and intervene.
The Bayern Munich star told The Times: “The guy goes on for a minute and a half, Patrick just grabs him on the shoulder. Loads of people get involved and I just went. Patrick gets angry about the story, rightly so, because Patrick’s a big boy and can look after himself a lot better than me.
“It wasn’t like Patrick was getting beat up. Patrick stepped in for me first because there was a guy just abusing me non-stop. I’ve got a very thick skin to this stuff.
“From a very young age, I was subjected to that at Sporting. One game at Sporting academy, when I was 18, got called off because Benfica Ultras stormed the training ground.”
Eric Dier felt hard done by at FA hearing
Dier expressed disappointment with the way the hearing into the incident was conducted, remarking that he would not change anything about the way he acted that evening if he had a chance.
He added: “I was extremely disappointed with the way the process was handled. I went to a hearing and it was a really strange experience. They start talking on behalf of the fan, saying the fan was fearing for his safety.
“But the fan wasn’t in this room. I said, ‘You’re speaking on his behalf!’ I said to them if it happens again I’ll do the same thing. I was getting pressured to apologise and I said you’ve got more chance of me retiring than apologising.
“Gareth [Southgate] wrote a really nice letter for me, which I’m extremely grateful for. Mourinho stood up for me. I had a very clear reputation as a player and for them to come to that conclusion was disappointing.”
Spurs Web Opinion
One can understand why the FA wanted to hand Dier a strict punishment as they wanted to set a clear precedent to ensure such incidents did not occur again. However, the reality is that any one of us would have done the exact same thing that the 30-year-old did had we seen a loved one in trouble.
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