Former hard man Hammer Tomas Repka has astonishingly admitted deliberately giving away a penalty as an act of vengeance!
The fearsome Czech defender (pictured making a point to ref’s assistant Dave Babski) joined the Irons in 2001 for a then record fee of £5.5m and was famously sent off on his debut for two bookable offences.
Having missed a match through suspension, he was then sent off in the third game he played for the club.
He rapidly gained a reputation for his disciplinary record, and received 10 yellow cards in that first season.
Now at the age of 40 he has admitted whilst promoting his new autobiography that he deliberately gave away the spot kick against his former club Sparta Prague’s main challengers for the Championship title, Liberec, whilst playing for minnows Ceske Budejovice.
He said that it was an act of revenge against Sparta president Daniel Kretinsky.
He explained: “At that precise moment I was not thinking straight. I hurt the team as a whole. But I was fuelled by human vanity, and I wanted to settle a score with Mr. Kretinsky.
“He didn’t behave fairly to me when I was leaving Sparta, so I promised him I’d get him back. Hopefully I succeeded. Nobody knew about it so I’m voluntarily admitting to it now.”
