Socceroos veteran Mark Schwarzer remains convinced Tim Cahill did nothing wrong during team celebrations at a nightclub despite new allegations to the contrary from a bouncer.
Cahill has been accused of snatching a drink from a woman’s hand and skolling it, grabbing a bouncer by the collar and refusing repeated requests to leave the venue in Sydney’s Kings Cross last Thursday night.
But Schwarzer, who was not at the nightclub at the time, said he still accepted Cahill’s version of the events.
“I’ve spoken to Timmy at length, as have a lot of other players as well, we’ve had his version of the story and I fully support his version of the story,” Schwarzer said.
“I wasn’t there but I know Timmy and I know the circumstances behind it all and it’s all totally untrue.
“Where the story’s come from is anyone’s guess. It’s disappointing that those sort of stories come out considering the guy has done absolutely nothing wrong.”
Football Federation Australia (FFA), who have already investigated the incident and cleared their player of any wrongdoing, stood behind Cahill again on Friday.
“There’s nothing in there that wasn’t previously alleged,” FFA spokesman Bonita Mersiades told AAP.
Schwarzer labelled the allegations, outlined in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on Friday, an example of tall poppy syndrome.
“There’s a lot of publicity around what’s happened with rugby league players and AFL players,” he said after launching a soccer-themed children’s book.
“It was inevitable that the press were out there to try and find a story on a footballer and obviously a very prominent footballer.
“Timmy’s a bit unfortunate. We understand our position that we are role models to people, but to create a story out of something that really has no substance to it is quite remarkable.
“But unfortunately that’s just the world we live in now and it’s a bit of a tall poppy syndrome.”
Schwarzer said it seemed part of generally negative treatment of the Socceroos in Sydney, which he said was a marked contrast to their reception in Melbourne, where almost 70,000 people watched them defeat Japan on Wednesday night.
“You look at the little response we received in Sydney and the negativity around certain aspects of the media in Sydney,” he said.
“To come to Melbourne and see such a positive response from the Melbourne media and also the Melbourne crowd is fantastic.
“It’s really what I envisaged to come back (to Sydney) after the Qatar game and have that sort of response.
“Unfortunately we didn’t receive that response and that recognition in Sydney.”
The FFA had received no complaints from police, the venue, the security company or the public over the Cahill incident, Mersiades added.
“On that basis, we decided not to take any action,” she said.
“We spoke with police, players who were present including Tim, and venue management in undertaking an inquiry into the matter ourselves.”
The claims from the bouncer quoted in the Daily Telegraph don’t qualify as a complaint received by the FFA, and as such aren’t worthy of further investigation, Mersiades said.
“They haven’t made them (complaints) to us. We don’t know who this person is,” Mersiades said.
“I can only repeat what I said before. Do you want me to keep repeating it?”
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