British football fans gathers to punish Norway in Eurovision Song Contest|Chelsea supportere vil straffe Rybak og Norge i Grand Prix

Roz sier:

Firstly, nobody cares about the Eurovision ‘least technically competent piece of music composed this year’ contest. Secondly, the anger against the referees cannot be blamedo on the players. Yes, referee incompetence is a disgrace to the sport. And yes, of course every Chelsea fan had the right to expect Obrevo to stand up and make a public apology, or at least justify his actions (not that it appears that is possible, as his decisions were indefensible. A blind man would have got more right by guessing).

But the real problem here is not the players or the referee. I mean yes, absolutely crazy to pick him to referee such an important game, after he had already had to apologise for disallowing a ligitimate Italy goal during the Euro. But more to the point, who decided to put him in charge? UEFA. Who put Lubos Michel, another notoriously incompetent referee, who gave Liverpool a fake goal against Chelsea in the champions league previously, in charge of the Chelsea v Manchester Utd champions leage final last year? UEFA. Again, even when Michel ‘didn’t see’ two Manchester United players headbut Chelsea players early on in the game (who were both subsequently bleeding from their mouths) UEFA did nothing to rectify the situation.

These kinds of decisions clearly swing the results of matches. In cup competitions, where one wrong goal can mean the end of a season’s work, this is unacceptable. Football authorities can expect nothing less than anger from fans and players if this is allowed to go on. The integrity of the sport is slipping away year by year. Even the English Premiership is now affected. This used to be the test of stamina… a few wrong decisions in the year wouldn’t matter, in the end, because of the number of matches, the idea was that referee incompetence would ‘even out’, that sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t.

But in recent years we have all seen that this clearly isn’t the case. Poor refereeing has determined the title two years in a row. This problem has reached epic proportions, and peaked with Obrevo’s display of incompetence.

But you have to ask yourself, would the players (or the fans, who are being attacked for their passion for the sport… perhaps if anyone in UEFA or the FA had such passion, these things would not be allowed to continue) have reacted with such anger, had they been able to put any faith in UEFA dealing with the situation appropriately? If the players had known that the rules of this sport would be applied, that such a blatantly false result would not be allowed to stand, they would surely have walked off the pitch laughing at the farce, knowing that once UEFA had reviewed the footage, justice would be done. The anger comes from the fact that every member of the team who were victims of Obrevo’s incompetence knew that, yet again, UEFA would do nothing to protect the integrity of football.

And it’s actually worse than that. Not only was no action taking against the offending parties (Obrevo for being incompetent, the linesmen for being blind, and Barcelona players for showing no sportsmanship – deliberate fouling, admitting after the match that they were aware of balls striking their arms but said nothing about it and denied it when appeals were made to the referee etc) but instead, UEFA compound the injustice by punishing the people injustice was done to.

UEFA must take action to protect the sport. As a life long football fan, I defend it against all it’s critics. But it is becoming increasingly difficult, when the authorities themselves make a mockery of it. You cannot demand respect from players and fans when the officials themselves have no respect and cannot do thier jobs. Every other sport employs modern technology to ensure that the right decisions are made in crucial situations. This technology has been developed for football, but UEFA, the FA and co. refuse to implement it. Why? It would actually speed up proceedings, with decisions being settled using FACTS in 10 seconds, rather than minutes of argument and weeks of fighting for justice which is preciously rare. Not to mention that it would make the sport more enjoyable to watch – with teams who rely on fouling for points refused the opportunity to cheat, finally we would see skill flourish, and teams who have a genuine desire to play football progress. There is no sensible argument against it, except that certain powerful figures in the football world, who have become used to relying on the current situation, would not like it. It smacks of the same ‘old boys club’ flavour that has recently been highlighted in the House of Commons. But this is not a good reason to maintain the system. Drastic reform is urgently needed if anything resembling the game I fell in love with as a child is to be preserved for the next generation.

In legal cases there is something known as ‘mitigating circumstances’. To be honest, whilst the reaction of some Chelsea players may have been unpalatable to some vieweres, it was mild considering what was at stake, and the fact that the knew from past experience that UEFA would fail in their duty to see that the sport was played fairly by rectifying false decisions which cost matches. Drogba is demonised, for swearing on TV after the watershed, when on another channel viewers were watching ‘Saw’, a film where a young girl’s eye is cut out. Now that, of course, would have been far less offensive. Extreme violence and swearing is allowed in films if it is vital to the plot, but apparently it is shocking to hear a single swear word in a situation where is was more deserved than any other I can recall.

If we are now supporting the policy of punishing the victims, next time there is a court case involving a robbery, we can expect to see the robber have police protection and counselling while the victim goes to prison. This is the moral equivalent of allowing Barcelona a place in the final and punishing Chelsea players for dirty Barcelona fouls and incompetent refereeing. Anyone who loves the sport, regardless of how they feel about Chelsea, will stand up and fight for football until these decisions are overturned.