EVERYONE knows top-class football is an emotional battlefield. When the stakes are high and the referee's decisions can exert a disproportionate influence on the outcome, it's not uncommon for players on the receiving end of officials' mistakes to lose perspective and let frustration and anger get the better of them.
Yet the squandering of dignity always comes at a far higher cost than the mere loss of a football match. The reputation of Chelsea Football Club was dragged into the gutter on Wednesday evening when their players responded to those cruel twists of fo
rtune not uncommon in professional sport with the kind of disreputable tantrums which besmirch the reputation of the game. However hard done by Chelsea felt during the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, when the Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo waved away no fewer than four solid claims for penalty kicks, it was no justification for the wild over-reactions of Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack at Stamford Bridge.
Drogba, who had been substituted in the second-half, made menacing gestures towards Ovrebo after the final whistle which were as petulant as any seen from a bully on the school playground. He was booked for this show of dissent and had to be restrained from further antagonism by manager Guus Hiddink as well as trackside security men. The big centre forward then stuck his face in one of Sky's cameras and used foul language to harangue the referee's performance.
Coming on top of Ballack's manic 40-yard confrontation with the referee, who waved away the German's claim for a penalty after a Barcelona defender raised an arm to block the midfielder's shot, it was remarkable Chelsea finished the night without so much as a single red card. If the psychologist from Oslo was guilty of anything apart from a myopic view of penalty box incidents, it surely lay in his timid response to such crass outbursts of dissent.
Given the boorish nature of their players' behaviour, Chelsea's show of disrespect for both a match official and the integrity of Uefa cannot be allowed to go unpunished. The TV pictures of wild misbehaviour beamed around the globe means the disciplinarians of European football must deliver a swingeing response. Footballers may not be role models, but they do set an example. Yesterday's unsettling agency reports of internet death threats against Ovrebo and the need to smuggle the referee out of the country merely confirmed the folly of the players' recklessness.
While a Uefa spokesman refrained from rushing to judgment, there's no way European football's governing body can afford to let Chelsea off the hook when the reputation of club football's pre-eminent competition is at stake.
As for the neurotic conspiracy theories, fuelled by sections of the English media, that Uefa did not want an all-English Champions League final for the second year running, how on earth did Ovrebo's mistaken decision to send off Barcelona's Eric Abidal for a dubious foul on Nicolas Anelka fit in with these claims of favouritism?
David Taylor, the Uefa general secretary, was understandably unimpressed by talk of an anti-English agenda. Back in 2005, Taylor was the chief executive of the SFA. During a controversial match between Hearts and Rangers at Tyncastle, Saulius Mikoliunas barged into linesman Andy Davis after the assistant flagged for a mysterious incident in the box which handed Rangers a penalty and victory. After Hearts asked the SFA to investigate the integrity of that decision, Mikoliunas was handed a hefty ban and Vladimir Romanov, the club owner, was fined for accusing Scottish referees of bias. Don't expect the miscreants at Chelsea to be treated any more leniently. Then, as now, there's no doubt the outcome of both games were decided by dubious decisions. But Uefa's response will be as peremptory as the SFA's.
Having said all of that, any fair minded person could only look on in disbelief as Barcelona reached the final thanks to the Norwegian rejecting four Chelsea penalty claims, consisting of two hand balls, a jersey tug and a shoulder in the throat. At least three of them were stonewall and all four could have been awarded without so much as an eyebrow being raised.
It was a breathtakingly incompetent display from a referee who looked out of his depth handling such a high speed, furious encounter. Ovrebo, remember, also erroneously overruled Luca Toni's 'goal' for Italy against Romania at Euro 2008. After such high-profile cock-ups, his future in the game must now lie with refereeing Norway's part-timers, rather than the cream of European football.
