Chelsea have accused referee Mark Clattenburg of racism. Steven Altman writes on another sorry affair for English football.
Sadly, the Mark Clattenberg affair will have no winners, and it is irrelevant who comes out in the end having told the truth.
If Clattenberg is proved to have said what he is alleged to have said, then of course he must go. Any type of racism in sport should, and must, be treated with a zero tolerance policy, because racism brings out the worst in human beings and is deeply hurtful to the victim and everyone else around him.
If the Chelsea players are proved to have concocted the allegations, either innocently or in the mistaken belief that they were helping a team mate, the consequences are equally as devastating.
However that the referee is alleged to actually have made such remarks in the first place makes no sense to me. Why on earth would a referee, who is in any event fully in control of a game and has the power to sanction players or even send them off as he did, need to make inflammatory and hurtful remarks in the first place? He has a wealth of experience in his chosen field, and knows better than anyone else on the field and in the stadium not to make such remarks as it is he who would be called upon to adjudicate this very issue if players during games that he was refereeing were guilty of such misconduct. Therefore he has nothing to prove. He must also be acutely aware of the recent Suarez/ Terry affairs as well and their outcomes. So why put himself in the firing line? In short, by doing so, he is effectively committing professional suicide.
To me, something doesn’t quite feel right.
But even having said all that, there is a wider issue to consider here – the sport itself might very well end up being called into disrepute because of incidents like these, and that is even more serious in my view because football may not fully recover if incidents like these keep recurring. And one gets the feeling that they are becoming quite common lately.
The further dilemma is this: if Clattenberg is proved to be guilty, it is easy to sack him and/or have him prosecuted for racism. But what if he is acquitted and found not guilty of all charges against him? What will happen to the two Chelsea players who made the allegations in the first place, and their team mates who backed them up? Will they be sanctioned, fined or sacked? I think not.
To me, that it where the real injustice in this awful incident lies.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
