Alan Shearer believes Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa crossed the line when delivering his verdict on the recent spy scandal.
The Premier League legend shared that while he admired the Leeds boss admitting in a press conference on Wednesday that he had spied on every single team, as transcribed by talkSPORT, a line had been crossed on this occasion.
Shearer shared that with Derby County’s training ground being on private ground, it didn’t sit well with him that someone potentially had to go to great lengths in order to witness Frank Lampard’s side train.
“Well I admire his honesty for him to be so upfront to say he has spied on every single team that he has played against, when you have a training ground and it’s a private training ground as Derby’s is then I don’t…it doesn’t sit easy with me knowing that someone has gone to the length of climbing trees or whether going through bushes or forests to actually get to spy on the players, then no I don’t think that is right,” said Shearer when talking to Coral in a brief clip on their official Twitter account.
“It’s completely different with a European game that you go the stadium, train in the stadium the night before, you pretty much know there is going to be a member of the opposition watching what you’re doing and watching you training.
“It happened to me on my last ever England performance in 2000, we were training in the stadium and we knew someone from the opposition was there, so what I did is got the ball and took 10 penalties and deliberately put the ten penalties to the keeper’s left knowing that if I got a penalty the following evening, I was going to put it to the keeper’s right and hopefully he’d go back and tell the manager or whoever was spying that I put all the penalties left.
“And we got a penalty and he dived to his left so that sorta work, managers wanted to know the opposition team, they’ll ask the players, friends to get any inside information and I get that as you’re always trying to get a little advantage.
“But I think there is a line and I think line on this occasion was crossed.”
OPINION
It seems Shearer while understanding why a team would spy on another team is not on Leeds’ side when it comes to the recent spy scandal. Every pundit has pretty much weighed in on the debate about the use of spies due to Bielsa’s revelation, in his conference as transcribed by talkSPORT, and it seems no one can agree. However that hasn’t stopped Shearer being so conclusive with his verdict as he does directly say a line has been crossed to make sure everyone knows how he feels about the scandal. While Leeds are still waiting to find out whether they will be punished over the use of spies, they need to ensure they don’t take their eyes of the prize even though they are waiting to find out their fate. Hopefully the punishment fits the crime and isn’t too hard, as talk of points deduction would be ridiculously harsh to say the least. Yet only time will tell which penalty will be indeed applied to Leeds’ perceived offence and it will set a precedent here on out.