Trouble kicks off between football star
and ball boy who promised timewasting

Chelsea forward Hazard has avoided criminal charges for apparently kicking the ball boy during his side’s Capital One Cup semi-final against Swansea City on Wednesday evening.

Tempers flared in the final minutes of the match with Chelsea trailing 0-2 on aggregate, when the teenage ball boy refused to return an out-of-play ball.

He was seen to be kicked by the Belgian player after refusing to give him the ball, and Hazard was sent off.

But the ball boy, yesterday identified as 17-year-old Charlie Morgan, appears to have intended to waste time.

One pre-match tweet on his account reads: “The king of all ball boys is back making his final appearance #needed #for #timewasting.”

Both Hazard and the teenager were interviewed by South Wales Police after the incident.

The ball boy, who was uninjured, was interviewed in the presence of his father and made no complaint about what happened.

It was still not known last night whether he had been questioned about his Twitter boast or whether it was known at the time.

Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez said the ball boy and the Chelsea star later exchanged apologies in the dressing room.

Swansea manager Michael Laudrup said he expected Hazard would regret the incident when he saw it on television.

He denied the club had told the ball boys to hold on to the ball when it went out of play.

“No, no. Definitely not,” he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he believed both the player and the ball boy were at fault. Asked about the incident during his weekly radio phone-in, the Sheffield Hallam MP said: “My early judgment is, this is going to sound like painful fence-sitting, but I think they are both at fault.”

The teenager at the centre of the controversy is the son of a multi-millionaire. His parents Martin Morgan and his wife Luisa own almost a quarter of the Premier League club and he has enjoyed a lifestyle that would turn the heads of most professional footballers.

Lifelong Swans fans, the Morgans amassed their fortune – a reported £42m in 2008 – through owning and selling a travel agency and then investing in boutique hotels.