Chelsea players labelled 'spoilt wallies' for snubbing young Hull City mascots before FA Cup clash

Chelsea actually shared the video on their own social media channels, as their players arrived at Hull's MKM Stadium for the cup tie on Friday night. However, the clip has since drawn the wrong kind of attention. A string of players stroll right past the group of mascots, including James, Estevao, Pedro and goalkeeper Robert Sanchez. Striker Liam Delap does stop, but only to greet a member of Hull's staff whom he presumably knew from his time on loan with the Tigers from Manchester City in 2023-24.

As a result, Chelsea's big-name stars have come in for some stinging criticism on social media. @BevTurner wrote: "Say hello to the children you fools!! You only kick balls for a living. But you would give these kids a massive thrill. Give them high fives! Anything!! Spoilt wallies...where is your humanity?"

Al Foran chimed in: "They could not care less, genuinely depressing how disconnected from reality modern day footballers have become."

Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies wrote: "Very disappointing @ChelseaFC could no one be bothered to even say hello to those young footballers as they passed? 5 seconds of their time!"

An account with the handle @HarveyJB24 pulled no punches, posting: "Bunch of c**** not even looking at mascots."

Another user wrote: "All that's wrong with the Premier League in about 30 seconds footage."

In fairness to the Chelsea squad, they had just walked through a door, so wouldn't have been anticipating the group, and the line of mascots were stood at an angle where they would have been in the players' peripheral vision. They would also later greet the same mascots just before kick-off, as is customary. Bizarrely, much of the outrage seemed to have been generated among the UK's right-wing media.

On the pitch, there was little reason to criticise Liam Rosenior's side, as they ran out comfortable 4-0 winners over their Championship opposition. Pedro Neto bagged a hat-trick of goals, while Delap got a trio of assists as Estevao also got on the scoresheet. The Blues will learn their round six opponents in the draw on Monday.

Speaking after the match, Rosenior lauded his players' professionalism: "What I'm really realising quickly is not just that they are good players, they are outstanding professionals," he said. "I felt it was a professional performance tonight against a very good team pushing for the Premier League. This is not an easy game. Some of our football was everything I want to see but before that the values of what the team stood for made me a very happy coach."