Di Canio Referee Push: The Shove That Cost Eight Matches (1998)
The Di Canio referee push happened at Hillsborough on Saturday 26 September 1998, when Sheffield Wednesday’s Paolo Di Canio shoved referee Paul Alcock to the ground moments after being sent off against Arsenal. Both Di Canio and Martin Keown were dismissed on 44 minutes, and Lee Briscoe won it for Wednesday on 89 for a 1-0 result. The Football Association banned Di Canio for 11 matches and fined him £10,000. It is one of the strangest afternoons in our On This Day series.
The shove lasted barely a second and reshaped two careers. What follows is what the shove actually cost, why the punishment satisfied almost nobody at the time, and what happened to the two men at the centre of it.
Key Facts
- Played on Saturday 26 September 1998 at Hillsborough, a Premier League fixture in the 1998-99 season, in front of 27,949 people.
- Sheffield Wednesday beat Arsenal 1-0. Lee Briscoe scored the only goal on 89 minutes, according to the 11v11 match record.
- Paolo Di Canio and Martin Keown were both sent off on 44 minutes, after a flashpoint that began with a foul on Patrick Vieira.
- Di Canio pushed referee Paul Alcock over with both hands seconds after being shown the red card, the moment The Star’s retrospective ties his ban and his fine to.
- The Football Association banned him for 11 matches and fined him £10,000: eight matches for the push, three for the dismissal itself. He admitted a charge of misconduct.
- Sheffield Wednesday suspended him with immediate effect, as the Irish Times reported at the time, and he did not play for the club again.
- Arsenal arrived as reigning champions and went on to lose only four league matches all season, per Transfermarkt’s final 1998-99 table. This was one of the four.
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The 44th Minute That Followed Di Canio Everywhere
Goalless Until Vieira and Jonk Collided
For most of the first half this was an ordinary autumn league fixture. Danny Wilson’s Sheffield Wednesday were hosting the reigning champions, and the Premier League Archive blog records that the match was still goalless when it “blew up spectacularly”. The trigger was a challenge in midfield between Wim Jonk and Patrick Vieira. Sky Sports’s contemporary report has Vieira appearing to aim a punch at the Dutchman, other accounts have him throwing him to the ground, and either way players arrived from both directions and a routine Saturday became something else.
Di Canio and Martin Keown found each other in the middle of it. The same retrospective describes the two men in a heated confrontation while teammates tried to separate everybody, and Paul Alcock hesitated a long moment before reaching for his pocket. When he did, he sent off both of them. The 11v11 match record lists the pair together, each shown red on 44 minutes.
The Red Card, and the Push
What Di Canio did next is why anyone still discusses this fixture. Seconds after the card, face to face with the referee, he shoved Alcock off his feet with both hands, and Alcock went down. The Star’s account runs the sequence from the foul on Patrick Vieira straight through to that moment. It is a few seconds of footage and it has outlived everything else about the afternoon.
How the flashpoint unfolded:
- 44′ A midfield challenge between Wim Jonk and Patrick Vieira flares up. Accounts differ on exactly what Vieira did: Sky Sports says he appeared to aim a punch, other accounts have him pushing Jonk over.
- 44′ Players converge; Di Canio and Martin Keown square up as others try to break it up.
- 44′ Paul Alcock sends off both Di Canio and Keown.
- 44′ Di Canio pushes Alcock and the referee goes to the ground.
- 89′ Lee Briscoe scores the only goal of the match for Sheffield Wednesday.
| Minute | Event | Player | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| 44 | Sent off | Paolo Di Canio | Sheffield Wednesday |
| 44 | Sent off | Martin Keown | Arsenal |
| 89 | Goal | Lee Briscoe | Sheffield Wednesday |
Eight Matches for the Shove, Eleven in Total
The Football Association’s response went well past Di Canio’s sending off, and it is worth separating out. The commission that sat at Bramall Lane on 23 October gave him eight matches for the push on Alcock and a further three for the dismissal itself, the fight with Keown. Eleven in total, and a £10,000 fine, but only eight of them belong to the shove. Di Canio admitted the misconduct charge and said afterwards that he was “very, very sorry for what happened”.
It satisfied almost nobody. The commission itself urged the FA’s disciplinary committee to impose stronger sanctions in future on any player who handled a match official. The Premier League’s own refereeing officer, Philip Don, went further and called the punishment inappropriate, telling reporters there had been 340 assaults on park referees the previous season and asking what message this sent to them.
His club moved faster than the governing body. Wednesday suspended him with immediate effect, and one Premiership fixture he missed as a result was later counted towards his FA ban. He never appeared for them again. He was sold to West Ham United in January 1999, signed by Harry Redknapp on the club’s own telling. Fourteen months later, on 26 March 2000, he volleyed the goal against Wimbledon that West Ham’s account records as the BBC’s goal of the season. On 16 December 2000 at Goodison Park he caught the ball instead of shooting while the Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard lay injured, and UEFA reports that it won him FIFA’s Fair Play Award for 2001. Almost twenty-seven months separate the shove from the moment at Goodison Park.
The Goal Nobody Remembers
Lost underneath the two red cards and the push is that Sheffield Wednesday actually won. Ten men against ten, it stayed goalless until the 89th minute, when Lee Briscoe produced what The Star called “a wonderful looping finish”. The crowd, per 11v11, was 27,949. Beating the reigning champions with the last meaningful kick of the afternoon would headline most club seasons, and the size of it grew as the year went on. Transfermarkt’s final 1998-99 table has Arsenal losing four league matches all season and finishing second on 78 points, one behind Manchester United. This was one of those four. Here it is a footnote, remembered by Wednesday supporters and almost nobody else, because the man sent off 45 minutes earlier had already taken the day.
READ MORE: More players no manager could talk out of themselves, in our Football Mavericks series →
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Di Canio Referee Push (1998)
What was the Di Canio referee push at Hillsborough in 1998?
The Di Canio referee push was the moment Sheffield Wednesday’s Paolo Di Canio shoved referee Paul Alcock to the ground after being sent off against Arsenal on 26 September 1998. It happened on 44 minutes at Hillsborough. Alcock stumbled backwards and fell, and the Football Association responded by banning him for 11 matches and fining him £10,000.
When did Paolo Di Canio push referee Paul Alcock?
Paolo Di Canio pushed referee Paul Alcock on Saturday 26 September 1998, in a Premier League match between Sheffield Wednesday and Arsenal at Hillsborough. The incident came in the 44th minute of the 1998-99 season fixture, immediately after Di Canio had been shown a red card during a mass confrontation between the two sides.
What was the score in Sheffield Wednesday v Arsenal on 26 September 1998?
Sheffield Wednesday beat Arsenal 1-0 at Hillsborough on 26 September 1998. Lee Briscoe scored the only goal on 89 minutes, according to the 11v11 match record. The attendance was 27,949, and both Di Canio and Martin Keown had been sent off on 44 minutes, so it finished ten against ten.
Who scored for Sheffield Wednesday against Arsenal in 1998?
Lee Briscoe scored for Sheffield Wednesday against Arsenal on 26 September 1998, with the only goal of the match on 89 minutes. The Star described it as a wonderful looping finish. It gave Danny Wilson’s side a 1-0 win over the reigning champions in a match otherwise remembered for the Di Canio referee push.
How long was Paolo Di Canio banned for pushing referee Paul Alcock in 1998?
Eight matches for the push itself, and eleven in total. The Football Association’s commission gave Paolo Di Canio an eight-match ban for pushing referee Paul Alcock and added three more for the dismissal that preceded it, plus a £10,000 fine. He admitted the charge at the hearing, and the commission recommended that stronger penalties should follow in future for any player who handled a match official.
Why was Di Canio sent off against Arsenal in 1998?
Di Canio was sent off for his part in a mass confrontation that began when Wim Jonk challenged Patrick Vieira and Vieira pushed the Wednesday player over. Other players joined in, and the Premier League Archive blog puts Di Canio and Martin Keown in a heated confrontation. Referee Paul Alcock dismissed both men on 44 minutes.
Was anyone else sent off in Sheffield Wednesday v Arsenal in 1998?
Yes. Arsenal’s Martin Keown was sent off in the same incident as Paolo Di Canio, both on 44 minutes, as 11v11’s record of the match confirms. The two had squared up during the confrontation that followed the foul on Patrick Vieira, and the match was played out ten against ten before Lee Briscoe’s late winner.
Did Paolo Di Canio play for Sheffield Wednesday again after the Alcock push in 1998?
No. The club suspended him with immediate effect and he never turned out for Wednesday again, though not because they cut him off: at the hearing the Wednesday director Howard Culley rejected suggestions the club was considering cancelling his contract, and the Irish Times expected him back for Leicester’s visit on Boxing Day. He moved to West Ham United in January 1999, signed by Harry Redknapp, and on 26 March 2000 scored the Wimbledon volley that West Ham’s own account records as the BBC’s goal of the season.
Who was Paul Alcock, the referee Paolo Di Canio pushed in 1998?
Paul Alcock was the English referee in charge of Sheffield Wednesday against Arsenal at Hillsborough on 26 September 1998. He sent off both Paolo Di Canio and Martin Keown on 44 minutes, having taken his time over the decision, as the Premier League Archive blog notes. Di Canio then pushed him over. The FA’s commission gave him eight matches for the push and three more for the dismissal itself, eleven in all, plus a £10,000 fine.
Were Arsenal the champions when they lost at Hillsborough in 1998?
Yes. Arsenal arrived at Hillsborough on 26 September 1998 as the reigning champions. The Premier League Archive blog describes Sheffield Wednesday as playing the reigning champions that afternoon, which made Lee Briscoe’s late winner a notable result in its own right.
What did Di Canio say about pushing Paul Alcock in 1998?
Di Canio said he was very sorry for what had happened, speaking after the disciplinary hearing that followed the 26 September 1998 match at Hillsborough. He had already admitted the misconduct charge. The same commission banned him for 11 matches, fined him £10,000, and asked the Football Association to make clear that heavier penalties would follow for anyone else who handled a match official.
How many people watched Sheffield Wednesday v Arsenal in September 1998?
The attendance at Hillsborough on 26 September 1998 was 27,949, according to 11v11. They saw a goalless match turn into a mass confrontation on 44 minutes, two red cards, the Di Canio referee push, and then a late Lee Briscoe goal that beat the reigning champions 1-0.
Why does the Di Canio referee push still matter?
The Di Canio referee push still matters because of what the Football Association attached to it. The commission that imposed the 11-match ban and the £10,000 fine sent an urgent recommendation to the FA’s disciplinary committee, asking it to warn players that laying hands on a match official would draw heavier punishment from then on. The penalty set after 26 September 1998 came with that warning attached.
The Di Canio Referee Push (1998)
A goalless league fixture, a scrap in midfield, two red cards and one shove that ended a player’s time at a club and left the Premier League’s own refereeing officer calling the punishment inappropriate. Lee Briscoe beat the reigning champions with a minute left, and Di Canio never wore a Sheffield Wednesday shirt again. For more afternoons that turned on a single second, keep exploring our On This Day series, and meet more of the game’s most combustible characters in Football Mavericks.
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