After all the fuss has died down
A special place is reserved for people like Tom Henning Ovrebo. Just like Anders Frisk, Graham Poll, Robert Mugabe, and Osama Bin Laden before him, Tom has achieved household name status and established himself on Interpol’s top ten most wanted overnight.
The witch hunt began to take shape in the Sky Sports studio last Wednesday night. Drogba set the precedent kicking and screaming and foaming at the mouth and the pundits continued in such vain. On the performance of the Norwegian, the ever impartial Jamie Redknapp (son of Harry Redknapp – brother-in-law of Frank Lampard Snr – daddy of Jnr – consequently making Jamie Lamp’s cousin and an obstinate Frank fanatic and Chelsea convert – still following?) had a lot to say. He launched into his tirade: “Why can’t we have the best Italian or Spanish… Hold on, we can’t have a Spanish one…” Did I mention how Jamie likes to give the audience the impression he has no clue what he’s saying?
Then you might have noticed him calling Andy Gray Andrew Gay…woops! Was that a little Freudian slip? Revealing some genuine insight amongst Jamie’s typically fumbling post match assertions? Surprised that there were hints of homoeroticism involving Jamie’s adopted paternal role model? Me neither.
If you can sift through all that, then well done! The point is: there’s some blatant elitist referee selection creeping into the Champions League. In this scenario of English v Spanish clash, only an Italian official would have been deemed to have sufficient capabilities, match experience and big game temperament to cope with the feisty semi final encounter.
Poor Tom Ovrebo’s abilities, eyesight, allegiances and all round personal character have been called into question by every quarter since his interesting take on officiating that night. The biggest question marks over his selection have focused on his lack of experience cultivated in the Norwegian league. Albeit, the Tippeligaen, catchy isn’t it, can hardly lay claim to presenting the biggest of big game clashes for ref’s to oversee – what when the Viking’s are taking on Odd Grenland and all the team’s just sound like fruity European beers – but his credentials should be enough to earn him a place amongst the refereeing elite.
The quality of football in Scandinavia should not detract from the role of the ref. They are still relied on to bound about with whistle in hand, cards at the ready, to keep players in check, administer deserving punishments and occasionally, at least last time I checked, award penalties. Then again, Ovrebo’s reluctance to point to the spot at the Bridge does notably discredit such an assumption.
So why was he selected? At the age of 41 the psychologist by trade has proven a shrewd professional. He has overseen semis in the Uefa Cup over the last two years and several big quarters in the Champs Lge such as Inter v Liverpool and Man United v Roma (he gave a pen to the Italians in that one). Earning the right to ref at European championships and even to be preselected for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa show he must be doing something right. Perhaps it is his fleeting similarities in appearance to the referee colossus Pierluigi Collina that earned him this honour. That is the only reason I can fathom in the sudden elevation of fellow slap’ed Howard Webb to top official in England. Bald is back for the men in black.
It appears that Ovrebo’s previous 15 years of refereeing was building up to that crucial semi final second leg and rightly so. Ok, so he had a shocker but he deserved to be the man in the middle on the basis of his experience. One thing we could be more worried about is the increasing trend of English teams getting to the sharp end of this tournament will mean that no English refs will be allowed to oversee the biggest games and our standard of officiating will never get the opportunity to impress. Then again, last time our top man, Mr Poll, was put in the international limelight in the Euro championships for that Croatia v Australia game he forgot how to count so maybe that’s just a blessing in disguise.
Before we find ourselves in a position where no ref is good enough or Italian enough to ref these big games we should embrace the possibility for officials from the third world of league football to earn the right to oversee the games on the biggest stage. Until we have video technology, the rest is up to them and they will have to deal with any consequences…or go into hiding until it all blows over.
But let’s be honest, Chelsea should have sealed the tie long before Ovrebo lost his bottle and forgot what a penalty was, so perhaps they’ve only got themselves to blame. And next time, Abramovich should dig deeper into his gold lined pockets and offer a bribe more attractive to the Norwegian.
