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Swansea ballboy Charlie Morgan breaks his silence over Eden Hazard kicking incident

 

Melanie Leather
Friday 25 January 2013 11:51 GMT
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A picture of Charlie Morgan posted on his Twitter page
A picture of Charlie Morgan posted on his Twitter page (Twitter)

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The ballboy kicked by Chelsea player Eden Hazard during the Capital One Cup semi-final second leg against Swansea has finally broken his silence with a post on Twitter.

Charlie Morgan, 17, revealed in the early hours of this morning that he will not be pressing charges against Hazard and that he had spoken to the player personally after the incident. He said the past 24 hours had been a 'crazy' time for him.

Charlie has amassed 101,192 twitter followers since the controversial match on Wednesday night and has been the butt of jokes from thousands of internet users, whipping social media sites into a frenzy.

At 12.22am today he wrote: "Crazy 24 hours. Spoke to Hazard and I will not be pressing charges. Be in touch."

Ahead of the match he suggested he would deliberately waste time, tweeting: “The king of all ball boys is back making his final appearance #needed #for #timewasting.”

The touchline row has led to heated debate over who was to blame and the Football Association could yet mete out further punishment to the Belgian player as the governing body continues to review the footage of the incident.

Hazard was dismissed by referee Chris Foy after losing patience during the closing stages of the match, when Morgan refused to hand over the ball after it had gone out for a goal kick.

Morgan fell to the ground as Hazard attempted to get the ball from him, with the Blues player then trying to kick it from under him but appearing to instead make contact with the youngster.

Although Morgan and his father, Swansea's largest shareholder Martin, have decided not to press charges, South Wales Police are following up complaints from members of the public in Sussex, Kent and south Wales.

Hazard and the ball boy also apologised to each other in the Chelsea dressing room after the final whistle.

The Football Association said it was continuing to review footage of the incident and the player's automatic three-match ban for violent conduct can be increased in "exceptional circumstances".

Swansea will not face any action over Morgan's role in the incident, as any complaint of time-wasting is considered an issue to be handled by the officials during the game.

Swansea stated after the game they had not told their ball boys to delay giving the ball back to the players.

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