'Dark Forces' or simple incompetence?

I watched the Chelsea v Barcelona European Champions League semi final last night, which of course, as anyone who follows football now knows, Chelsea lost to an away goal scored deep into stoppage time.

I'm no great lover of Chelsea but it was hard not to sympathise with the explosion of anger after the final whistle, directed at a referee, many of whose decisions were incomprehensible. Chelsea had four penalty appeals turned down, two of which appeared absolutely clear-cut. It was perhaps unfortunate that two of them involved 'Dorothy' Drogba, the big girls blouse with talent,but who falls over if you blow on him. This, of course, leaves a mark on the minds of officials but a competent official should be watching the play not allowing such things to cloud his judgement. Drogba was furious with the referee at the end of the game and roundly abused him for some minutes,which will cost him dearly.




The referee, Mr Tom Henning Ovrebo was awful. There is no other adjective to describe his performance. What is amazing in a game at this level, Mr Ovrebo admitted later to EUFA officials that he had made serious errors - not all of them one sided. It was incredibly harsh to send off Barcelona's Abidal for a minor tangle of legs as well as his apparent lack of eyesight for many of Chelsea's appeals.

Doubly astonishing was the fact that the Barcelona manager and players, after the match, almost shamefacedly sympathised with their opponents over the referee's performance, Pique admitting that he had handled the ball and felt lucky a penalty had not been awarded.

All in all a shocking night for the referee. But of course there are those who see more in this. Some Chelsea players and the pundits in the Sky TV studio suggested that the referee may have turned a blind eye to Chelsea's appeals because EUFA did not want two Premier League clubs contesting the European Final again. I can well believe they didn't, and are happier with a Barcelona v Man United final but I think it demeans the accusers to make such allegations against the European Association. I think it is down to simple incompetence. Ovrebo was clearly not good enough to referee, under pressure, at this level and EUFA need to take heed of this. There needs to be a strict tier of high quality officials for games of this magnitude because last night did little for anyone's sense of justice.