No problem with Rice, says Southgate

  • by Staff Writer
  • Thursday, 21st March 2019

Gareth Southgate has dismissed any notion of taking any further action against Declan Rice after the midfielder was forced to issue an apology for a comment he wrote in 2015.

The young Hammer was just 16 when he adopted the hashtag "#uptheRA" in a comment regarding an appearance for one of the Republic of Ireland's youth teams.

And this afternoon Southgate attempted to defuse the row regarding Rice's comment by insisting that no further action would be taken against the 20-year-old as a result.

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"People are still maturing at that age," said the England manager. "We've all discussed things, said things, written things that might not look the way we would want them to several years later.

"You are in conversations with friends and you can get giddy and say things that maybe you don’t know enough about or you don’t understand the context. I think our fans and our public will recognise that."

Meanwhile the FA told reporters that they "are aware of the matter and will be writing to him [Rice] to remind him of his responsibilities." It is unknown at this stage who was responsible for trawling through Rice's social media history in order to unearth the post from almost four years ago.

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