Top ten football swears features Didier Drogba, Mary Earps and new entry David Coote

We would like to take this opportunity to thank whoever released the David Coote video on the first Monday of an international break, and of course the cursing referee himself, without whom this top ten would have felt at best unprovoked and at worst an infantile push for clicks in the absence of much actual football to write about.

We won’t pretend it’s not still that but swearing content begets more swearing content and we hope Mr Coote, as he reflects on his woozy tell-all night of potentially career-ending slights against Liverpool and their former manager, can take solace in making the top ten football swears.

10) Phil Neville
The absolute best thing about Phil Neville telling a journalist to “show me some f***ing respect” wasn’t the swear itself or the anger seeping from every pore as he said it, which caused him to lose his train of thought and meant he had to ask the reporter to repeat the question, but the speed with which he realised his overreaction, saw some sort of fine or MLS retribution coming and made nice with his pal “Franco”.

“Sorry for swearing,” he said. “Sorry what was the question? Ask me the question again please, Franco.”

9) Neil Warnock
“Any injuries?” Warnock says calmly and menacingly to his Huddersfield players, having drunk his half-time tea in a corner of the showers before taking his sweater off in preparation for his Mike Bassett-like barrage. “How can there be any f***ing injuries, silly question, hey?”

Roughly a dozen swears followed in a team talk summed up by the phrase: “You f***rs are f***ing soft as sh*t.”

8) Harry Redknapp
“Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that,” the reporter said having been told to “f*** off” by Redknapp for calling him a “wheeler and dealer”.

We only wish the tape had rolled for longer to capture the reporter’s attempts to make peace with Redknapp, because without evidence to the contrary we will always assume it played out in exactly the same way as David Brent’s failed reconciliation with The Oggmonster.

“What’s your real name?”

“Harry.”

“It’s a good name.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, I’ll call you Harry.”

7) Barry Fry
Renowned for his fruity half-time team talks, in which he frequently referred to his players as “f***ing [insert term OK in the 90s but wholly inappropriate now]”, Fry could have had his own top ten, but also used expletives in a more jovial manner, like when negotiating a deal for Miguel de Souza’s transfer from Wycombe in 1997.

“Fucking hell, are you sure? You ain’t gonna get that,” Fry said as De Souza’s agent suggested a salary. “How much?” he repeated three times with a smile on his face as £10k was put forward as a survival bonus.

“Done!” he then said before shaking hands with De Souza and picking up an actual gavel on his desk. “Sold to the fat b*stard in the blue blazer!”

6) Lucia Garcia
We imagine all footballers who have had microphones shoved in their faces immediately after games felt at one with Lucia Garcia.

After Manchester United’s 2-1 comeback win over Aston Villa, rather than Focusing On The Next Game, claiming It’s All About Three Points or being Proud Of My Teammates, she told the BBC simply and gloriously, in her second language, with no apparent awareness that she was doing anything wrong, perhaps due to her extreme fatigue: “I’m just so f***ing tired.”

Fair enough.

5) Roy Hodgson
“No, no, I don’t think they’ll want that,” the Match of the Day reporter said after Roy Hodgson asked “do you want to use that” in reference to the first attempt at an interview following West Brom’s 2-1 win over Bolton in 2011, in which Hodgson claimed the journalist was “being tricky” by not speculating as to which decision the Baggies boss had an issue with.

Before take two Hodgson said “I won’t mention it then – there was no f***ing penalty in the game. Let’s just talk about our performance.”

A blunt and spiky do over followed and the reporter couldn’t help himself despite Hodgson looking as though he was closer to giving him a headbutt than a straight answer: “Any decisions in the game that you weren’t happy with?”

Lovely stuff.

4) Didier Drogba
Chelsea kicked off the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona in 2009 with rather a large monkey on their back. John Terry’s slip had cost them the trophy a year previously and they had been knocked out in the semi-final in three of the four seasons before that. The potential for antagonism was sky-high even before they took to the field.

Michael Essien gave Chelsea an early lead, in the game and on aggregate after they drew 0-0 at the Nou Camp, only for Andres Iniesta to score his iconic stoppage-time equaliser to send Barcelona through on away goals.

In between Chelsea had three penalty appeals waved away by referee Tom Henning Ovrebo, all definitely in the You’ve Seen Them Given For Less category, with the handball particularly blatant, before another handball after Iniesta’s goal led Michael Ballack to jump up and down and shout in Ovrebo’s face, presumably to check the Norwegian’s sight hadn’t been entirely impeded for the rest of the 90 minutes.

It will have been hard for Ovrebo to miss Drogba after the final whistle as the Chelsea striker followed him around the pitch, jabbing his finger in his direction before the referee escaped down the tunnel to a chorus of whistles and boos from the Stamford Bridge crowd.

Just in case those watching at home were in doubt as to Drogba’s feelings, he walked straight up to the nearest camera, eyes ablaze, arms flailing and said: “It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace. It’s a f***ing disgrace.”

3) David Coote
We’re not at all surprised by a fourth official thinking a Premier League manager is a c**t. They stand expressionless on the touchline and field a torrent of abuse on a weekly basis for things they’re not at fault for, like a waiter being shouted at when the food’s terrible or an airline employee at a check-in desk being insulted over a flight delay. We bet they’d call Jurgen Klopp a c**t when they get home too.

We are though surprised that David Coote allowed himself to be filmed calling him a c**t, whether by a supposed confidant from Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club or anyone else, whether in a flat at 3am after a night out when he should have gone home or at any other time.

He’s been suspended by the PGMOL pending an investigation which for an hour or so called on ‘tech experts’ after the referee boldly cried deepfake, before the memories of the ill-informed rant came flooding back and he ‘accepted’ that the man who looks an awful lot like David Coote calling Klopp a “German c**t” was, in fact, David Coote.

Very stupid and also a bit nasty. We’ve all thought someone is a c**t. Coote thinks Klopp’s one. He’s entitled to his opinion. But preceding the C-bomb with his nationality in indicative of some deep-seated bigotry, or at least a desire to win favour by coming across as a xenophobe to his inebriated pals, which isn’t a whole lot better.

2) Joe Kinnear
It was quite the way to announce his return to management after four years in the wilderness, and while in most ways it’s a shame that Kinnear will be best remembered for his ill-fated five-month spell at St James’ Park rather than his successful playing days at Tottenham or success as manager of Wimbledon in the 90s, we remember his first press conference as Newcastle boss with nothing but fondness.

It was a uniquely sweary affair with no little paranoia and featured perhaps the greatest exchange between a manager and reporter in any sport, ever.

Joe Kinnear: “Which one is Simon Bird?”

Simon Bird: “Me.”

JK: “You’re a c**t.”

SB: “Thank you.”

What followed was an extraordinary back and forth during which Kinnear made it plain he hadn’t read many or any of the stories he perceived to be hit-pieces on his first week in charge, and the poor Newcastle press officer’s attempt to put a retrospective off-the-record blanket ban on the rant fell on deaf ears. The gathered journalists couldn’t believe their luck.

1) Mary Earps
She may have been shouting it at Jenni Hermoso, her Spanish teammates, her fellow Lionesses for not doing their jobs while she did hers or those who doubted her position in the team in the lead up and even during the tournament. We don’t really care. It was an all-time great ‘F*** OFF!’

It ticked all the boxes: timing; volume; clout. But it delighted mainly through its ambiguity. A ‘F*** OFF!’ to no one in particular, and therefore everyone and everything, is one worth applauding.

Do-gooders may well claim she didn’t set the best example to the young girls and boys watching, but as with all Nobody Likes To See That Sort Of Thing In The Game moments, like fisticuffs, dark arts and hilarious dives, we all absolutely do want to see them, because they’re entertaining and – more often than not – joyful, and we can’t imagine any ten-year-old watching that and thinking anything other than “she’s awesome” before putting goalkeeper gloves on their Christmas lists.