Enraged Western Sydney coach Marko Rudan has denied he’s a “whinger” and a “sook” as he doubled down on his stance that the Wanderers are being unfairly targeted and called out new A-League boss Nick Garcia in another verbal tirade.
Despite being given a show cause notice for a post-match tirade on Sunday, Rudan again didn’t hold back on Wednesday, declaring he was “putting the game first” by taking on the officials who “sit in their houses in Manly” as the league faces financial battles.
Apart from again pointing out alleged refereeing inconsistencies affecting his team, Rudan also took aim at the Australian Professional Leagues, which runs the A-League, for wasting millions of dollars on failed digital arm KeepUp rather than spending the money on goal-line technology and contributing to employing more referees on a full-time basis.
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He also took aim at APL commissioner Garcia for his failure to make himself accessible to unhappy club officials.
“You would have thought that a new commissioner would go out there and speak to CEOs, get his feet on the ground and have good conversations to try to form good discussion points to improve this game going forward,” Rudan said.
“But you’ve got guys who only want to be heard when they’ve got something to say, but yet are happy to sit in their houses in Manly.
“My CEO has only met him (Garcia) once.”
Rudan made no apologies for his stinging post-match comments, which included questioning the integrity of referee Adam Kersey.
“I stand by everything – I don’t do things just for the sake of doing it,” he said.
“It’s not about me being a whinger or a sook.
“I get a lot of messages from a lot of coaches and they are supportive of the comments because they’re quite frustrated as well.
“Everything I do is to put the game or my club, players and fans first.”
“There were too many incidents that we saw in the game (against Macarthur) for me to feel that way.
“There were so many there in terms of the inconsistencies and what I thought were injustices to our team that day – but it’s happened before.
“I can go on and on. We’ve got footage of all this which we’ve sent to FA.”
Rudan also said that “other codes were laughing” at football in Australia.
“You can see where the game’s at right now,” he said.
“If I have to be a punching bag, if I have to be unspoken about things that matter to not just me and my football club but the game in general, I’ll say it.
“I’m not scared. I’ve got broad enough (shoulders) and I’m ugly enough to take the punches.
“I’ve taken a few in the last couple of days. It’s OK. I’ll take what comes my way.”
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