Not A Good Week For Chelsea

Clattenberg cleared by FA

Obi Mikel charged with threatening behaviour - towards Clattenberg.

Lets be honest, was always going to happen. I may be playing the 'conspiracy' card, but there was no way the FA would ever declare a referee racist whether it was true or not, not with the whole of the referee union standing behind him. There would be a mass boycott, no matches played in any professional English league for weeks. Much easier to just sweep the whole thing under the carpet using the fail safe lack of evidence.

Not swept under the carpet though is it?

Well Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney were closer to the ref than Ramires, who reported the incident, and who does not speak English. Cole and Rooney have said they did not hear anything racist or offensive. Ramires couldn't recall when in the match the supposed statement was made by Clattenburg and Mikel did not hear anything either.

Chelsea employed their own QC and an independant FA enquiry all stated that there was absolutely no case to answer for, meaning in layman's terms, that Clattenburg never said anything offensive.

So the conspiracy is why Chelsea brought it up and why they went public before they reported it to the FA, which is clearly the wrong course of action.

Slumdog's Son wrote:Well Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney were closer to the ref than Ramires, who reported the incident, and who does not speak English. Cole and Rooney have said they did not hear anything racist or offensive. Ramires couldn't recall when in the match the supposed statement was made by Clattenburg and Mikel did not hear anything either.

Chelsea employed their own QC and an independant FA enquiry all stated that there was absolutely no case to answer for, meaning in layman's terms, that Clattenburg never said anything offensive.

So the conspiracy is why Chelsea brought it up and why they went public before they reported it to the FA, which is clearly the wrong course of action.

Ahh, I have a very considered opinion on this and after weighing up all the permutations, motives and legal ramifications I can confirm it was because they are fuckwits.

Arkay v2.0 wrote:

Slumdog's Son wrote:Well Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney were closer to the ref than Ramires, who reported the incident, and who does not speak English. Cole and Rooney have said they did not hear anything racist or offensive. Ramires couldn't recall when in the match the supposed statement was made by Clattenburg and Mikel did not hear anything either.

Chelsea employed their own QC and an independant FA enquiry all stated that there was absolutely no case to answer for, meaning in layman's terms, that Clattenburg never said anything offensive.

So the conspiracy is why Chelsea brought it up and why they went public before they reported it to the FA, which is clearly the wrong course of action.

Ahh, I have a very considered opinion on this and after weighing up all the permutations, motives and legal ramifications I can confirm it was because they are fuckwits.

Agreed - sometimes you just have to follow where the evidence leads - if you like it or not.

The referee's association want Chelsea to pay Clattenburg damages. I can understand that nobody should be wrongly accused of racism but it is hard enough for victims of racial discrimination to gain any sort of justice, how many will bother to press a claim if they'll end up having to pay up if they lose?

Kamuza wrote:The referee's association want Chelsea to pay Clattenburg damages. I can understand that nobody should be wrongly accused of racism but it is hard enough for victims of racial discrimination to gain any sort of justice, how many will bother to press a claim if they'll end up having to pay up if they lose?

This should have been straight forward - surely they record all the official's communications during a given match?

They don't but the question is why don't they? What do they have to hide?

They say they plan to introduce recording (where possible) as a result of this. But it will just be private use, not for public airing. Yet the officials' communications in rugby have been broadcast to all and sundry for ages - not sure why football needs to be so coy.

The Tonker wrote:They say they plan to introduce recording (where possible) as a result of this. But it will just be private use, not for public airing. Yet the officials' communications in rugby have been broadcast to all and sundry for ages - not sure why football needs to be so coy.

Fear of victimisation - referees and officials get enough stick and sometimes physical and verbal abuse as it. Football fans are fickle with rules, they will still get angry with the referee if all the fouls are going against their team even if he is 100% correct to be doing so. Letting everyone hear what they're saying allows those same angry people to single out the particular individual that's making the 'bad' calls, and potentially intensify the abuse towards them.

Red614 wrote:

The Tonker wrote:They say they plan to introduce recording (where possible) as a result of this. But it will just be private use, not for public airing. Yet the officials' communications in rugby have been broadcast to all and sundry for ages - not sure why football needs to be so coy.

Fear of victimisation - referees and officials get enough stick and sometimes physical and verbal abuse as it. Football fans are fickle with rules, they will still get angry with the referee if all the fouls are going against their team even if he is 100% correct to be doing so. Letting everyone hear what they're saying allows those same angry people to single out the particular individual that's making the 'bad' calls, and potentially intensify the abuse towards them.

I wouldn't broadcast the ref's mic but it could still be recorded and used in cases like the Mikel incident. I've seen far too many unfathomably bad decisions to trust match officials one teeny weeny bit.