El Clásico: where football died (the sequel)

The beautiful game is not so beautiful

I mentioned UEFA's hidden agenda in Part I of this post. Actually, it's not so hidden. Michel Platini, head of UEFA, has on numerous occasions stated that he is a Barça fan. Such is his power that major European football clubs are questioning the impartiality of the refs in Barça's European matches. The sheer volume of news articles, blogs and commentaries regarding the Barça bias is mind boggling.

Here are just a few of the articles I've found: Another Prick in The Wall, a name you just gotta love; a post from a Manchester United blogger on ManUtdTalk.com; Platini's dislike of Madrid on Goal.com; Platini's admiration for Barça on Goal.com; an opinion from The Army of White which looks more like a page out of the Ku Klux Klan and which is also posted on Xabi Alonso's Facebook page.

If you're thinking this type of controversy (polemic as they call it here) just started with the arrival of Jose Mourinho, I give you this link of a Barça match played back in 2008. I saw the match on TV. After being reduced to 10 men on a really dubious red card, Espanyol did well to keep Barça at bay. After the full 90 minutes, the game was tied at one goal apiece. Five minutes of injury time were added by the 4th referee. At 6:40 of added time the referee awarded Barça a late penalty on another really questionable call. After Barça made the ensuing spot kick the game was ended.

More recently, Pepe was sent off for a hard foul on Dani Alves during 2011 Champion's League (CL) first leg semifinal match at the Bernabéu. The way Alves was writhing about in pain on the pitch, it would certainly seem like a justifiable call. But was it? See for yourselves in this video. How about the 2010 CL semifinal return match against Inter Milan at the Camp Nou when Thiago Motta fouled Sergio Busquets? Was that worthy of a red card or was it a Busquets dive? See it here for yourselves. Observe how Busquets "peeps" to see if the ref carded Motta. Clearly a performance worthy of an Oscar. In fact, all you have to do is type "Busquets dive" on Google and be amazed at the number of results you get.

Perhaps the referees weren't at the correct viewing angles to see these fouls. Hence, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, this type of theatrics is precisely the justification that warrants the implementation of instant replays.

But it gets worse. In the 2009 CL semifinal return match at Stamford bridge, referee Tom Henning Ovrebo officiated what can only be described as the most scandalous display of Barça favoritism to date. To this day, Ovrebo still gets the occasional death threat email for that match. Just recently, he admitted to errors which cost Chelsea the final of the Champion's League game that year.

So is Real Madrid just being sour grapes or is there really a conspiracy to favor Barcelona? I've already shown that Platini does not disguise his admiration of everything Barça and his disgust for Madrid. But here's the kicker and Mourinho, in his famous "Why?" rant against Barcelona in 2011, was not entirely wrong. The article centers around Senes Erzik, executive vicepresident of UEFA's Referee Committee and right hand man of Angel Maria Villar, president of UEFA's Referee Committee and the Royal Spanish Football Federation. The icing on this cake is that Erzik is also project director at UNICEF. Remember that Barcelona's main sponsor was UNICEF up until the current season. At the very least, there was a very strong vested interest between UEFA and UNICEF to favor Barcelona - money. A club stands to make millions from gate receipts, merchandising and TV rights for every stage they progress in the Champion's League. The eventual winner gets an additional bonus paycheck.

I started this post in Part I by saying that football is the greatest sport in the world with the dumbest rules ever conceived. In the last part, we'll review some these rules.