Mark Clattenburg made one wrong call, obviously wrong in retrospect, in Chelsea’s defeat by Manchester United.
Torres’s ridiculously elaborate fall obscured the fact that he had also been fouled and the referee’s culpability was reduced, in neutral eyes, accordingly. He had one instant view, not the benefit of TV replays. But the apparent dive meant a second yellow card so Chelsea were doubly punished in error.
As for the offside United winner, that was also bad blunder but not Clattenburg’s. Great if the ref spots it but no one can properly expect that to happen automatically. It was the linesman’s call.
Chelsea were justifiably angry at the defeat, and still wounded by the John Terry affair, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that this anger propelled the club in its squalid pursuit of the referee on a trumped-up charge of inappropriate, in effect racist, language. That has now been thrown out, as everyone guessed it would be, by the FA as it had been by the police.
And Chelsea have issued a sincere, unqualified apology. Er, no. They haven’t. Having treated Roberto di Matteo shabbily only a few days ago, they appear unwilling to show belated semblance of grace.
Plenty of decent people support Chelsea FC. There have been great players and managers at Stamford Bridge. They deserve better than the disreputuable mob who seem to be in charge. An apology, of course, may yet come …
And now that the merry band of Chelski men is being managed by Benitez you wonder how long it’ll be before he produces a lit of ‘facts’ directed at those who disparage or even traduce his (now) beloved team. A perfect appointment for the Knightsbridge muck spreaders. All very sad….Labelling a ref racist is at least as bad as the Suarez or Terry incidents. Will the Chelsea players be banned appropriately? British football has made great strides over the last 30 years and yet recent events suggest more effort is needed to educate some in football
There was an interesting take on Chelsea’s behaviour, in a DT article by Jim White, where it was shown to be only the latest in a list of unsubstantiated allegations, made very publicly, by the club against referees.
The common factor, in each case, was that they followed a Chelsea defeat and in every instance they have, subsequently, been withdrawn or disproved.
Not, of course until the accused referee has had his reputation besmirched and had to face a trial by media.
As one of those commenting suggested, could this be a deliberate attempt, by Abramovich, to demonstrate his ability to censure the one man he cannot control, at Stamford Bridge – the referee?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/9697610/Chelsea-should-apologise-to-Mark-Clattenburg.-But-dont-hold-your-breath.html
My thanks to M Salut for editing.
I still don’t know what Clattenburg was actually accused of saying.
According to that font of reasoned argument The Daily Mail, Chelsea players claimed that Clattenburg said “Shut up you monkey” and the Guardian reported that Chelsea players had said he used the word monkey when speaking to Mikel and called Mata a “Spanish twat.”
The BBC reported that neither player actually said they heard the remarks but that the claims were reported by Chelsea’s Brazilians Ramirez and David Luiz who allegedly have a very poor grasp of English. The Mirror suggests they may have misheard him saying “Shut up Mikel” because of his Geordie accent.
Refs make mistakes and Clattenburg has made many most of which I believe were honest. What Mikel and Ramires tried to do was justify their anger by using the racial card. They believe they can get away with judging a man in the press on something he did not do and that is disgraceful. Can a man by innocently charged with a very serious charge and then allow the people who made it to go unpunished. This was quite clearly a fabricated charge, and if the Jason Roberts’ of this word want to protest by not wearing the ” Kick it out ” arm band they should equally stand up against this reverse racism with as much outrage. IT’s not about Torre’s alledged dive it is about pointing the finger at an innocent man because you believe you can hurt him by being untruthful. Let us all stand together at this injustice just as we believed Suarez was wrong so is Mikel
Genuinely fouled our not, Torres with his “ridiculously elaborate” fall was obviously laying it on extra thick. I’m no fan of Clattenburg as a ref but in this instance my sympathies lie with him. Chelski, meanwhile, keep sinking on the scale of human behaviour.
Does ‘contact’ necessarily mean it was a foul.I think Clattenburg got the decision absolutely right.I still like to believe that Torres’s poor run of form is karma for his antics against us at Anfield with Turner’s ‘free kick’.