Every England player ever booked by Jude Bellingham’s nemesis Felix Zwayer

Dave Tickner
Jude Bellingham reacts to a Felix Zwayer decision while playing for Borussia Dortmund
Jude Bellingham reacts to a Felix Zwayer decision

As you are by now no doubt aware, UEFA have stitched England right up by appointing match-fixing Jude Bellingham annoyer Felix Zwayer to referee their Euro 2024 semi-final against Netherlands.

This is clearly a disgrace, and the tabloid panic about it in no way a confected load of old c*ck designed to fashion a convenient scapegoat that avoids having to be mean about lovely Gareth Southgate. Zwayer is going to send Bellingham off just for sh*ts and giggles. For proof of his long-standing and deep-seated hatred of all things English, here is the comprehensive list of every England player he has ever booked during his tainted officiating career.

 

Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Sure, it seems irrelevant now, but back in 2015 the devious Zwayer had already twigged how important Loftus-Cheek was going to be to England’s 2018 World Cup bid, attempting to cut him down to size with a first-minute booking during a Champions League game against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

 

Ben Chilwell
Cautioned by our nominated villain in the first half of a 5-0 Champions League defeat to Porto back in 2016, which is clearly the reason Gareth Southgate decided not to pick him or indeed any left-back to deputise for poor old Luke Shaw in Germany this summer.

 

Jesse Lingard
Pure, spiteful anti-English vindictiveness can be the only explanation for the yellow card Zwayer so gleefully brandished at late sub Lingard in the closing moments of Manchester United’s win over Benfica in the 2017/18 Champions League. We see you, Felix.

 

Jordan Henderson
Okay, fair enough, Zwayer may have been on to something with this caution in Liverpool’s goalless draw with Porto in the 2018 Champions League last-16 clash. But is one good deed enough to erase all the bad? Not for us to judge.

 

Dele
We wish it was 2016 again, in a way.

 

Harry Kane x2
What you can’t accuse Zwayer of is lacking vision and foresight. He knew way back in early 2016 that Harry Kane was no one-season wonder, making sure to book the striker in injury time during a Europa League game against Fiorentina after Kane had replaced Tottenham’s starting striker *checks notes* Nacer Chadli.

A couple of years later, Spurs were well on their way to completing a memorable Champions League comeback against Barcelona before our nemesis Zwayer got involved, once again brandishing his yellow card at England’s captain having decided the bookings of non-English lads such as Toby Alderweireld, Victor Wanyama and Erik Lamela had covered his tracks sufficiently.

But booking Lamela was careless. We all know that Lamela is simply not the kind of player to invite the referee’s attention with any kind of housery or nonsense; for him to be booked can only mean a ref looking to provide distraction.

Interesting that Zwayer has been canny enough not to book Kane in the Bundesliga, where it might look a bit too obvious.

 

Eric Dier
And emboldened by carding Kane, Zwayer then – for his final act of a game in which Barcelona’s 4-2 win must now be considered forever tainted – showed another yellow to Dier, who had only come on because Wanyama was trying to get himself sent off in what we must now presume was some kind of well-intentioned if misguided attempt to expose Zwayer’s nefarious ways.

But maybe Wanyama’s antics weren’t entirely in vain. Zwayer did forget to book either Harry Winks or Kieran Trippier, with the German’s failure to identify the right-back’s future left-back fill-innery a rare oversight on his part.

 

John Stones
Zwayer booked the blameless Man City man during a 1-0 World Cup qualifying win over Slovenia back in 2017, clear evidence of his inherent bias and also giving Stones the distinction of being the only man booked by Zwayer in an actual England game. UNTIL TONIGHT, YEAH? Booking five Slovenian players as cover might fool some, but not us. We know who the real target was all along. We’ve seen that Jack Reacher film with tiny Tom Cruise in it.

For further evidence of just how clever Zwayer is at concealing his true intentions, see his efforts during England’s wild 5-3 win over Kosovo in 2019, when he booked five of England’s opponents and none of their players. And the really scary thing is just how long he’s been planning this: he also booked no England players during an U21 game back in 2013. Sinister.

 

Mason Greenwood
Fair enough, we’ll concede this one.

 

Jude Bellingham
Some would say it was the yellow card that kickstarted the whole thing, but as we’ve shown here this is way bigger than Bellingham and goes back way further.

James Milner
But come on. Imagine the kind of monster you have to be to go around showing yellow cards to the grand old man of English football. Sickening, it really is.

 

Ben White
Is the real reason he doesn’t want to play for England the fact he knows the game is rigged after the yellow card he got from Zwayer during Arsenal’s 4-0 win over PSV last season? Some things man is not meant to know.