ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: TOTTENHAM Hotspur will initiate disciplinary proceedings against 16 first-team players who travelled to Dublin for an unauthorised Christmas party last week.
Harry Redknapp, the club’s manager, confirmed last night that he will summon his squad to their Chigwell training complex on Monday morning, in order to deal with the issue. He is expected to issue fines of up to two weeks’ wages to all 16 players involved in the party, including the team captain, Robbie Keane, who is reported to have organised the trip. The striker’s future at White Hart Lane is now in doubt.
The players had told Redknapp they were travelling to Dublin in order to play golf. They reportedly spent an afternoon in a pub before moving on to a nightclub. They returned to London 72 hours before last Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat by Wolves.
In his Friday press conference before that match, Redknapp had spoken of his disapproval of Christmas parties and said his players would “never take the liberty” of holding one without his permission. The discovery that 16 of them had done just that just 48 hours earlier has left him very unimpressed.
Spurs have acquired a reputation as the Premier League’s foremost party-lovers. In recent months Redknapp has fined Ledley King and David Bentley for drunken behaviour. He also took a dim view of Peter Crouch being photographed, looking dishevelled, in a London nightclub in October.
“I am not happy and it will be dealt with, and dealt with severely, on Monday,” Redknapp said of the Dublin trip. “I was shocked when I heard about it. . . They didn’t ask my permission and they will have to take the consequences of that.
“I don’t see why parties should happen in today’s football – they’re more trouble than they’re worth. . . Being sensible is part and parcel of being a footballer and you’re well paid for it.
“I’m a football manager. I wouldn’t go out and get drunk, falling around and pulling some old slag. I’m not that stupid. Even if you wanted to do it, somebody would catch you out. Having said that, Tiger Woods didn’t do too badly.”
For now, Redknapp wants his squad to focus on today’s match at Blackburn Rovers, but there will be implications for many players and particularly for Keane who has has fallen behind Crouch and Jermain Defoe in the White Hart Lane pecking order of late.
Guardian Service
