If you’re anything like me, my sexually attractive reader, your eyes glaze over when someone mentions the beautiful game.
I don’t habitually watch football in the way many of my friends and family do. I was never one of those kids who was any good at or even remotely interested in football at school. If a local team, Middlesborough, Newcastle or Sunderland are playing, I’ll support them. Naturally I support England in the world cup and English teams against Europeans.
The only time I make a point of focusing on a match for a whole 90 minutes, is when I’m enjoying a pint down the pub with friends. Last night I watched Chelsea play Barcelona in the Champions League.
I’ve never seen a more obviously corrupt official, than match referee Tom Henning Ovrebo. Not just looking the other way as hand balls followed dirty tackling once or twice—but on at least four occasions when Chelsea should have been awarded a penalty.
Chelsea, playing at home, dominated the game, scoring early. Barcelona only needed to equalise to go through on away goal points. In the 90th minute that’s exactly what they did. It was a bona-fide screamer which did it—a last ditch stab at the goal by Iniesta. The only problem being Chelsea should have had at least another two goals, but it would appear the referee had other plans.
As the final whistle blew, Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, having being almost knocked out at one point, which again went unnoticed by the Norwegian referee, was utterly furious—pointing in the ref’s face before finding a TV camera to yell, “it’s a fucking disgrace”.