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Tell us what you really think, Ian...

Thank you, Ian Holloway, for gifting us 2025-26’s greatest headloss

Nestor Watach •

Move over, Kevin Keegan. Stand down, Rafael Benitez. Nigel Pearson’s infamous ‘ostrich’ spiel has finally been defeated.

We have a new entry into the annals of the all-timer manager rants. Thank you, Ian Holloway, for your services to footballing headloss.

It’s almost 20 years since Holloway sensationally branded then FIFA president Sepp Blatter “an idiot and a lunatic” during his time at Plymouth Argyle.

A decade and a half has passed since Holloway’s Blackpool heyday, in which he gave us one of the great press conferences with an impassioned rant about Wayne Rooney’s contract demands at Manchester United and the state of the game in 2010, branding football’s powers that be “so wrong it is frightening”.

Did you think Holloway was past it? You’ve clearly not been paying enough attention to League Two, where the 62-year-old has done a remarkable job to turn Swindon Town from relegation scrappers to promotion hopefuls.

But has he lost his penchant for dramatic flair along the way? Not a chance.

This is Messi at the Qatar World Cup. LeBron James dominating the NBA in his late thirties. Roger Federer beating Rafael Nadal in the 2017 Australian Open.

You really need to listen to the clip (below) of Holloway’s incredible delivery, worthy of the stage at Shakespeare’s Globe, for the full effect. But we’ve included the full transcript of his rant for your reading pleasure.

The long and short of it is that Holloway was left incensed by the Football Association for suspending his captain, Ollie Clarke, with less than 24 hours’ notice ahead of Saturday’s clash with Barrow – a game they won 3-1 in his absence.

The Robins were fined £1,000 for fielding Clarke in an EFL Trophy tie against Luton. Holloway blamed an administrative error for not knowing that a ban he was serving applied to that competition.

“It’s disgusting. They want to fine me? Good. They want to ban me? Good – do it,” Holloway began his remarkable rant on BBC Radio Wiltshire.

“Have a look at yourselves, every single God-damn one of you.

“It’s absolutely disgusting. And whether I get another game or not, I don’t really care anymore. I care about my team. I care about my captain, I care about my players, and I should be allowed to prepare professionally.”

“If anybody wants to say, ‘Oh, you should have been professional?’ Well, I’ll tell you what’s professional. She looked on the portal – she made one mistake by pressing the wrong button, and the wrong name went down on these horrible computers that will take over the world in the end.

“So I forgive her that mistake, but the referee and the fourth official let her down at half-time, and the portal let her down, and apparently, she should have checked with the handbook. Sort your lives out, every single stinking one of you. That’s how I feel, right?”


“That’s what’s been hanging around us like a stinking something in your underpants that shouldn’t be there,” he added. “And I’ve said it now, and you know what we’re going to get, absolutely not listened to, not anything to do with it.

“They’re all too big to admit that, ‘Oh, hang on’. And the pair of them don’t even get on anyway – the FA or the EFL do not get on. They don’t like each other. It’s a joke. Why you get getting solicitors? Because they’re a law onto themselves.

“I wasn’t going to say anything. Why shouldn’t I? I’ve earned my stripes, man… I’m not having our club secretary dragged through the coals, left, right and centre. You have a look at yourselves first. I know how wrong you are. You cowards.”

“Have a look at yourselves”

READ NEXT: Ian Holloway: I didn’t evolve quick enough as Blackpool boss in the Premier League

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Football League