Leicester City star striker Jamie Vardy has revealed that he received death threats in the wake of his alleged involvement in getting former manager Claudio Ranieri sacked after the side's terrible slump in form this season.
65-year-old Ranieri was removed from his position, only nine months after leading the club to their maiden Premier League title in their 132-year history.
The Italian manager, who was also named FIFA's coach of the year for guiding the side to league glory, was informed of his axing on his return from the club's 1-2 defeat against Sevilla in the first leg of the Champions League last-16 tie in Spain.
Denying his alleged role in the dressing-room mutiny that undermined Ranieri, Vardy said he was 'actually sat in anti-doping for three hours' when the meeting regarding the sacking of the former manager took place.
He, however, admitted the incident had threatened his family's safety, resulting in a number of alleged road-rage incidents, involving his wife, Rebekah, as the victim.
"The story is out there, then people pick it up and jump on it and you're getting death threats about your family, kids, everything. I try to get on with it but when people are trying to cut your missus up while she's driving along with the kids in the back of the car it's not the best. It's happened plenty of times. It is terrifying," the Guardian quoted Vardy as saying.
"Apparently the meeting that got him sacked I read one story that said it was straight after the Sevilla game. Absolute shambles. It said I was personally involved in a meeting when I was actually sat in anti-doping for three hours. The stories were quite hurtful. A lot of false accusations were being thrown out there and there's nothing us, as players, could do about it," he added.
The 30-year-old striker, who informed that the threats had been made on social media, insisted he was wrongly named as one of the players who allegedly turned against the manager.
Throwing his support behind the former manager, Vardy also questioned as to why Leicester's players did not express any support for Ranieri on their social media accounts until they were criticised for their collective silence.
"I can understand what you are saying but, personally, my tweet was [meant to be] going out straightaway, but I wrote it that many times I couldn't quite get the wording right. You don't know what to say. It was 24 hours before I did it but we had just got back from Seville. We were delayed, landed, then went straight home, kids in the bath and straight to bed myself," he said.
"It's hard. Don't get me wrong, what he did for Leicester was unbelievable and nobody would have expected that [title] in a million years. We can only thank him for that. The way this season has gone, players never seem to be the ones who get the sack. It always falls on the manager and that is what has happened. We are all sincerely gutted that it did," Vardy added.
Vardy is currently preparing to lead England's attack in their friendly against Germany in Dortmund on Wednesday.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
