Man arrested after referee Anthony Taylor harassed by Roma fans

Now to Anthony Taylor and a man has been arrested and charged with a fray after the English referee was targeted by Roma fans at Budapest airport following the Europa League final. Taylor and his family were confronted with a chair and a bottle being thrown in their direction. The referee's group PGMOL say they are appalled at what they call abhorrent and unjustified abuse. Taylor took charge of Roma's game against Sevilla in Hungary on Wednesday night. The Italians were beaten on penalties with the club and particularly Jose Mourinho furious with Taylor's performance. Budapest airport has confirmed that an Italian citizen has been arrested and charged with a fray before noting that Taylor, once escorted away by security, did then board his flight safely but was accompanied by police officers. Well the PGMOL said we are appalled at the unjustified and abhorrent abuse directed at Anthony and his family as he tries to make his way home from refereeing the UEFA Europa League final. We will continue to provide our full support to Anthony and his family. Well Taylor booked 14 players during the game and played almost 30 minutes of stoppage time in total before it was eventually decided on penalties. Mourinho blamed Taylor for the defeat with footage emerging of him apparently waiting for the referee near the team bus after the game. The Roma head coach could be heard using several swear words and called Taylor a disgrace. It happened a short while after his news conference where again he was critical of the officials. I need to defend my lads and I must say that we are used to it but still seeing this kind of refereeing in a European final is really really hard. Rather than backtracking from their criticism of Taylor, Roma have doubled down. General manager Tiago Pinto told Italian media yesterday that we at AS Roma don't want to raise doubts about Sevilla's merits. We believe that with our opponents we put on a great final and honoured the stage offered to us by UEFA in the best way. We don't usually comment about these types of situations but we've analysed both the most glaring incidents and those seemingly less evident and it is clear that in disciplinary terms the refereeing of the match was not balanced. That's where the Mourinho's actions after the game were linked to the abuse directed at Taylor at the airport. There's this view of Mourinho that he's kind of a bit of a pantomime villain, that his antics on the touchline are a little bit of fun but essentially harmless and I think we've seen at Budapest airport that Mourinho's petty little tantrums and hissy fits have real life consequences. They have genuine consequences on Anthony Taylor's experience of the Europa League final and this incredibly special moment in his career. It's fine to criticise their performances, it's fine to criticise decisions, it's fine to disagree with what referees have done on the pitch. I don't think anybody's disputing that but the point where it crosses the line into personal abuse, into physical abuse in this case, I think that's a line we have to be extremely wary of. A referee's going to get physically assaulted at some point. It happens in grassroots football every week and the really sad thing about it is that a lot of people will just assume they deserved it. In terms of the way the Roma bench was acting last night and the comments afterwards, it wasn't really an anomaly. They've had 13 red cards this season and Mourinho himself was sent off at least three times I believe and back in March he was talking about potentially taking legal action against the referees after a game, one of Roma's games. So these kind of comments, these exaggerations aren't a rarity.