Danny Mills reacts to Leeds’ Fair Play award

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Leeds United were awarded the FIFA Fair Play award after that incident in April’s Championship clash against Aston Villa.

Leeds United hero Danny Mills has joked that Marcelo Bielsa should be handed his P45 and booted out the door at Elland Road after one of the most infamous clubs in English football were awarded the FIFA Fair Play award on Monday night, while speaking to talkSPORT (24 September, 8:00am).

Back in April, Leeds found themselves at the centre of a flash-point which took English football by storm.

Controversy reigned when Mateusz Klich fired the ball into the net during a Championship clash with Aston Villa, seconds after Jonathan Kodjia fell to the floor with a seemingly serious injury.

Villa’s players and staff stopped in their tracks, obviously expecting Leeds to put the ball out of play to allow Kodjia to receive treatment, despite the fact that those rules only apply when a player suffers a head injury.

And all hell broke loose when Klich fizzed the ball into the corner, sparking an unseemly brawl which resulted in Patrick Bamford copping a ban for feigning a slam from Anwar El Ghazi.

So this doesn’t feel like the sort of incident that tends to earn a club a Fair Play award.

But FIFA were obviously impressed by Bielsa’s decision to let Aston Villa walk in an immediate equaliser, despite the best efforts of Pontus Jansson.

“I think Bielsa should be sacked! I can’t have Leeds winning the Fair Play award!” said Mills, tongue in cheek.

“What happened to ‘Dirty Leeds’? The whole ethos of Leeds is built on ‘Dirty Leeds’!”

With the so-called ‘spygate’ scandal still fresh in the mind and a flailing Bamford hardly covering himself in glory during that dark incident on an otherwise bright spring afternoon, controversy continues to follow Leeds like a shadow. And winning a world-wide award following one of the most divisive and contentious incidents of the entire season? That feels so brilliantly, typically Leeds.

Perhaps Sky Sports’ Kelly Cates said it best.