Fair comment Mikey..........It is the he said they said brigade I was referring mainly to. Add to that the incident inside the changing room. Which again has been the speculation of hearsay and inuendo. As I have said on numerous occasions for me the whole thing was sour grapes.
I don't doubt at all that the course of events were greatly shaped by the fact Clattenburg had just lost them a game against one of their main rivals, chiefly Mikel's reaction, which he is being punished for. However I completely reject any notion that the thing was a calculated scheme by Mikel or the club as a whole to get try and get back at Clattenburg, as some seem to suggest. It was handled very poorly by Mikel, slightly poorly by Chelsea, and in a stupidly slow manner by the FA, but I think it's very daft to point the finger at Chelsea and label them as villains, scum, cheaters etc. etc., when they in reality did what any club would do. If after the Newcastle game in which the referee sends off Fonte and then gives two dodgy penalties, Ramirez comes into the dressing room and tells Mayuka he heard the referee or one of the other players call him some kind of racist slur, then the two went to Nigel and told him, would he reply "Nah you're either lying or misheard him.", or would he trust his lads and report it to the authorities and let the situation have some light shined on it? And then continuing this hypothetical situation, if it turned out the claims had no base, would we be happy if everyone started calling Mayuka a liar and a scumbag and saying that Southampton are a pathetic disgrace for a club? If Mikel and Ramires wore red and (a little bit of) white, and not blue, a lot of people would see this completely differently. But since it's Chelsea, they are disgusting human beings who deserved to be banned from football for life.
There surely have to be consequences or compensation for defamation of character? Even though he's been cleared he will ALWAYS be remembered as the ref at the centre of a race row. Clattenburg will have that hanging over him for the rest of his career, and that is hugely unfair on him. Not to mention how stressful the past couple of weeks must've been for him. Since racial abuse is quite rightly treated as an incredibly grave offence, and such is the extent of media coverage on it, unfounded accusations of racial abuse need to be taken very seriously as well IMO. Whether it's Chelsea's fault for reporting it, or the media's for the relentless coverage of the 'incident', someone should be at the very least apologising to Clattenburg.
Just seen on BBC Sport that the referee's Union are in fact demanding ''a full and unreserved apology and compensation for loss of earnings, damage to reputation and stress''. Good.
The FA should have had it cleared up in a couple of days in my view, it is mostly their fault for it dragging on to this point, the media don't help as per usual. Chelsea should also in the circumstances publicly and privately apologise to Clattenburg, if the feelings hanging on from the United game prevent or slow that, that is just sad. And they should also obviously stump up his wages.
I'm sorry but this whole situation has absolute nothing to do with Chelsea Football Club, and i think its outrageous of some of you brand them a racist club. Remember when Dave Jones was sacked as our manager because of 'hear say'? If i had kids, say, and one of them told me that they were being bullied verbally for some such reason, I would investigate, and do it properly and thouroughly and want to know what really happened, if they lied then they should be dealt with, as Mikel will be. The whole situation was blown out of proportion by the media. This whole affair should have been dealt with underwraps, so that people who actually have no idea about the situation can't voice there ridiculous and misguided opinion, which to be honest only makes them look like a total moron. Anyway, if what has been said about the situation is true, the mishearing and whatnot, then surely it should be dealt with as a big misunderstanding and dealt with officially. Chelsea were not wrong to investigate, but they were about spilling all the information to everyone. They conducted themselves poorly, but i believe what they did was the correct thing, as if i was in that situation i would have done the same. And i am fairly certain most people hear would have too. What if it was one of our players who thought this had happened?
Chelsea had a duty of care to follow up a complaint by an employee...should have been done quietly, but how do you do things quietly these days (unless you are Southampton of course). The player should not have stormed into the refs room (though his anger after being misinformed may be understandable), but his manager definitely should have pulled him away and not got involved. Clattenburg has said he is not suing Chelsea...I think he is wise, would stretch it out even more and they probably didn't do much wrong anyway. I really feel for him as this will be very hard to get over in his career. he should be able to officiate at Stanford Bridge,,but can you see that happen. Chelsea have issued a fuzzy statement accepting the FA's ruling, but they really need to come out and clearly say that they feel this was a misunderstanding.
It has been an unsavoury affair full stop, but there have been a few of these in recent times in football. It seems to me that every little word anybody in football utters is being scrutinised to the enth degree and of course the media being the media love it, and it gets hugely magnified and blown out of proportion. Common sense has been lost from sight. Life in general is bigger than football but to anybody not remotely interested in professional football it must seem so damn trivial the way that every word by officials, players, managers, etc is being scrutinised and chewed over and becomes headline news. Surely before anybody runs off making serious claims about something somebody has said then they should be 100% certain that they are correct - in any walk of life, especially where different languages are involved.
In my opinion, everyone involved has acted correctly, except whoever informed the media about the issue before an investigation was completed. There was simply no need for any of this to be in the public domain.
Strange thing is that I was just thinking that would be a good game for his comeback...because we are pussycats. Also 4th official on Sunday at Spurs v WHU. Good luck to him...time he got back to work.
I don't think anyone's going to be giving him stick. We all knew the whole scandal was a load of crap, didn't we? He's obviously not said anything racist. Saints v Norwich has got to be one of the nicest games to officiate anyway.
Southampton v Norwich City Referee: M Clattenburg; Assistants: S Child, S Beck; Fourth official: K Friend.
