Football: Reed reports Ginola over celebration

DAVID GINOLA may have lit up the FA Cup on Tuesday with his superb winner for Tottenham at Barnsley, but the referee Mike Reed was unimpressed by his subsequent display of chest-baring (or vest-baring, in fact), and has reported him to the Football Association for "over-elaborate goal celebrations".

The Frenchman reacted to his strike - a contender for goal of the season - by running to the Spurs fans, taking his shirt off and throwing it to the crowd.

The controversial Reed said: "This sort of thing can be dangerous if people start to surge forward. The police have constantly told us to keep the players on the pitch when they are celebrating goals. I realise it was a brilliant goal but we are under instructions to report anything we feel is over the top."

David Pleat, Tottenham's director of football, was unimpressed. "Maybe Mr Reed should have noted that David was celebrating in front of his own fans. He didn't drop his shorts, he didn't show his backside, the shirt was thrown back to him and the game restarted at the time it should have done. Maybe Mr Reed wished he had scored the goal."

Despite the unfavourable report, Ginola is unlikely to be punished. FA sources yesterday indicated that the worst he can expect is a letter reminding him of the potential hazards of over- enthusiastic revelry.

Well used to producing the unexpected on the pitch, Ginola did much the same off it yesterday when he said he will model himself on George Graham if he becomes a manager.

"If I became a manager then I would follow George Graham's philosophy of football," he said. "The best managers in the world know that the idea [of football] is to build the team from the defence. I remember when I played in Paris for PSG that we got a lot of criticism because we didn't score many goals. But at the end of the season we won the title.

"If you keep a clean sheet then there is always the possibility of you scoring one goal and winning. So I would build from the back and have players like myself up front - that would be very nice."