According to yesterday’s poll, 41 per cent of Spoiler readers agree with Jose Bosingwa, believing hopeless Norwegian referee Tom Henning Øvrebø was acting “under orders” to allow Barcelona safe passage to the Champions League Final. News that has emerged inthis morning’s Sun will do nothing to quell suspicions of a big ol’ stitch up.
Apparently, the official UEFA website posted a “dummy” match report hours before kick-off, which stated the game would end 1-1. It also correctly predicted that the Spaniards would earn a late equaliser, and that Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and Alex would receive bookings.
The Spoiler puts this down to an incredible coincidence, but the type of folks who wear tinfoil hats to keep the government out of their brains will certainly have some more fuel for their crazy conspiracy fire…
Poor old Didier Drogba. Despite trying to help his team by throwing himself on the floor as much as possible, he was ultimately denied another opportunity to get sent off in a Champions League final by the piss poor refereeing of Norwegian Tom Henning Øvrebø. Le Drog - who thought nothing of dropping the F-Bomb in front of millions of TV viewers - now faces a lengthy ban for wearing flip flops on the pitch verbally abusing the offical.
Michael Ballack will also face the wrath of UEFA, after giving web-savvy fans the opportunity to create endless hilarious gifs (see here and here).
While Ballack and Drogba’s conduct may have been unacceptable, the inexperienced Norwegian has since admitted he did not perform his job properly:
The referee is understood to have told the UEFA match delegate after the game that he made “significant mistakes” over the course of the game.
It’s no secret that Michel Platini and his UEFA cronies were extremely keen to avoid another all-English final, leaving conspiracy theorists convinced that Øvrebø’s questionable decisions cannot simply be put down to his woefully bad judgment. After the game, Guus Hiddink hinted at a stitch-up:
“Conspiracy is a very tough word, I don’t want to go with that tough word. [Um, you just did - Ed.]
“I cannot say if UEFA would not like another all-English final.”
So, what do we think? Was it all a big carve up, or can we put this one down to human error? Let us know your thoughts below…
Quarter-final ties correctly predicted 90 minutes before the draw
[click image to enlarge]
I’m not usually one for crazy conspiracy theories, but this one looks relatively credible. At 10.28 this morning, someone posted a thread on the Liverpool Echo forum (see it here) correctly predicting the Champions League quarter-final ties. No bookies were taking bets on the ties all morning either, suggesting some sort of shenanigans were going down:
Rumour going around draw has been leaked….. this is no doubt rubbish but if Rumour is true it’s LFC - arsenal and Chelsea - fenerbache and manure v roma
No bookies will take bets on the draw either…….
Let the draw commence. Comeeee on!
If my maths are correct (which they probably aren’t), there’s a 1 in 64 chance of this chap correctly predicting the ties, and it’s mighty
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