To be fair to Chelsea, a formal complaint was never lodged. There was a discussion with a FA official after the game and that said official reported the possibility of racial abuse. Chelsea to their credit investigated the incident and decided there wasn't enough evidence to pursue legal action. It's the media that has blown this way out of proportion but they always do.
Not so 1950. The referral was by the chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers. Under current law, ANYBODY is able to report an alleged racist incident to the police, so the guy is within his rights -- as you might expect him to know, given his position! The reason the matter was referred to the police was because the Society of Black Lawyers are dissatisfied with the actions of the FA in dealing with racial incidents and now have a policy of reporting all such alleged incidents to the police in order to ensure that they are properly investigated.
I apologise if I am wrong but I thought they had now made an official complaint on the alleged incident with Mikkel but were not pursuing the issue of ' Spanish Twat ' due to lack of evidence
Again I apologise if I am wrong but I thought they said they were acting on behalf of a newly formed body called the Black Players Union.
By the way, Consett isn't really regarded as Geordieland, it's out in the sticks and is a mix of Geordies and Mackems. I knew people that lived there when I was a youngster and they supported whichever team that was doing the best.
That is indeed the situation as of last night I believe. I haven't seen any confirmation anywhere since that Chelsea have withdrawn the complaint regarding use of inappropriate language including racist language aimed at Mikel. Regarding that complaint, since it allegedly took place on the field during the game, unless the officials' microphones were not working, what was said should have been audible to both assistant referees and the fourth official. Also, since Mikel himself is said not to have registered exactly what Clattenberg said, the complaint appears to be based on evidence from Luiz and Ramirez. Has anybody actually seen news that Chelsea have withdrawn the complaint reported by a reliable source?
"Monkey" and "Mikel" could be misconstrued. Depending on how you intonate either of them, and also on the accent "heard" you may well come to the same conclusion. Monkey has stress on the first syllable and Mikel, depending on where you hark from on either the first of second. Hence, in the heat of the game, and particularly in the heat of this game a mishearing may easily have been noted. It goes down to intelligibility of accent, and I for one would not like to be the lawyer defending one claim or the other without recorded evidence. Hearsay is simply not enough in this case.
Nor indeed would be lip readers. Try mouthing the same two words silently to yourself. The mouth muscles, lips and tongue do about the same thing. Pursed lips for the M, followed by open mouth etc etc
No offence meant I'm sure wonky. It does mean that more and more of us are thinking less and less of your thread. But that's just because we have short memory spans and the fewer hours that have passed the more likely we are to remember!
Being a Consett chap myself I can honestly say he could easily have been misheard. Don't forget that Chelski have a lot of foreigners so some of them may have difficulty understanding English let along regional dialect. If I go to, say Barcelona... I haven't a clue if the guy next to me will be speaking pure Spanish or Catalan Spanish tbh...
It's very interesting that Mikel is stood next to Clattenburg arguing over a period of time, yet he doesn't hear him say " monkey " yet a player stood away from the 2 players clearly hears it!!!! Also it defo would have been picked up via one of the other 3 microphones. I can't see any referee uttering words to a player in front of banks of camera's and pitch micro's. I don't see anything wrong with " Spanish Twat ", it's no different than "English Bastard " players are just little shrinking violets now. I wonder if they will now stop hurling abuse at officials now and I hope foul language now is booked everytime. No way can Mikel be taken as monkey in any Geordie or Mackem accent. Chelsea players will end up being 100% hated at every ground.
yew cu'nt git them thar wards mudled up in Norfick bor. Mickle dornt sound nuffin lioke Monkee, dew yew git that?
