Steven Gerrard, the England Skipper, has warned his teammates that they cannot swear at referees during any of the upcoming World Cup matches.
Wayne Rooney was booked for such action in England’s Monday 3-0 warm-up against the Platinum Stars prompting FIFA to clampdown on foul language during the largest event in club football.
Gerrard is aware of how important it is to keep the ref’s happy, as he wants to make sure that the team is able to keep all of its 11 players out on the pitch at all times. He stated that it is not acceptable to swear at the refs since they demand and deserve respect. He added that when one player gets booked the whole team suffers for the action thus everyone is responsible for keeping their tongues clean.
He went on to say that it is already hard enough to play with only 10 players and that the team has already had a few poor matches due to loosing people from the pitch for bad behaviour.
One of the incidents he was referring to was in the Portugal 2006 finals when Rooney was booked from the pitch causing Gerrard to instruct the quick lipped striker to talk back with his feet starting with England’s opening match against the United States this Saturday.
Gerrard refused to comment on the leave of Rafa Benitez the Liverpool coach or if he has a future with the Anfield club stating that at the moment his focus is solely on the World Cup and England.