Neil Warnock opens up on being ‘fined 20 grand’ for talkSPORT interview – and admits he shouldn’t have spoken

Neil Warnock has admitted he made a mistake when discussing ‘thumping the referee’ during an infamous talkSPORT interview last year which resulted in the former Cardiff boss being fined £20,000.

After a defeat by Chelsea last March, which all but nailed on Cardiff’s relegation from the Premier League, Warnock joined the station to vent his frustration at the referee, Craig Pawson.

Chelsea scored a clearly offside goal on their way to the comeback victory, while Cardiff were also denied a couple of penalty calls which could have put them in a commanding position against the Blues.

And Warnock told on talkSPORT his wife, Sharon, backed him ‘thumping’ Pawson for his performance during the game.

“When I came in yesterday,” said Warnock, “my wife said to me: ‘Darling, if you had wanted to thump the referee and linesman, I wouldn’t have stopped you’. It was so unjust.”

A couple of months later Warnock was hit with a £20,000 fine for comments he made in the talkSPORT chat – as well as two other interviews – and he hit out at the Football Association for bringing in an outside barrister to get their case over the line.

The 71-year old has stayed relatively silent on the incident since being fined, though he joined talkSPORT once again on Wednesday morning and finally opened up on his infamous interview.

“I got fined 20 grand for that,” said Warnock on the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast.

“To be fair, I shouldn’t have said about the thumping because people were saying about condoning violence – you can’t say anything without some people getting upset, can you?

“Craig Pawson was the ref.

“Funnily enough, I got fined 20 grand for that, and when I got fined the FA brought an outside barrister in – they didn’t even have anybody good enough in their own department to do me!

“The talkSPORT interview got me fined, and they looked back at my previous fine – they haven’t got time to read all mine – and in 2015 I got done when I was at Palace.

“Guess who it was against? Chelsea. And guess who the referee was?

“It was Craig Pawson!

“He should have booked John Terry and I said to him, ‘if that was one of my players he would have got booked’.

“I got fined 15 grand.

“A couple of weeks ago it was Arsenal vs Chelsea – it was Craig Pawson.

“You’re telling me he shouldn’t have sent Jorginho off!? How can he not get a second booking in that game!

“So the thing is, don’t have Craig Pawson against Chelsea or you are in trouble.

“I just can’t believe it…

“And the linesman from last year… I still wake up dreaming of Eddie Smart – how he can’t see that I’ll never know in a million years.”