Football bosses must carry the can for players’ bad behaviour

If you couldn’t watch the Europa League final between Sevilla and Roma, then you should count yourself fortunate. It was a nasty, bitter and forgettable excursion, blighted by fouls and time-wasting, that should make anyone connected with it ashamed, apart from the doughty English referee Anthony Taylor, who had a fairly good game. But for the players, 13 of whom were booked; the managers, especially José Mourinho, who had a shocker, shouting and cursing at all the officials; and Uefa itself, which did nothing to protect Taylor from being abused by a foul-mouthed mob who hurled a chair at him as he prepared to leave with his family from Budapest airport.

It is blindingly obvious that players and managers behaving like monsters to each other and to officials encourages thugs in the crowd to ape them.