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Chelsea's Didier Drogba, second from right, remonstrates at referee Tom Ovrebo as they leave the pitch following their Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match against Barcelona at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Wednesday, May 6, 2009. Chelsea says it will take strong action against any fans found to have made threats against the Norwegian referee who officiated the club's Champions League semifinal against Barcelona. London's Evening Standard newspaper said Thursday that death threats have been made over the Internet against referee Tom Henning Ovrebo. AP Photo/Jon Super
The behaviour of Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack during the Champions League semi final, their angry tirades against referee Tom Henning Ovrebo, has been universally panned. And deservedly so.
The pair acted like petulant brats and it’s behaviour like that which sadly pervades all levels of sport, thanks, in part, to their terrible example.
The AFL was heavily criticised in some corners for its tough policies regarding umpire contact, incidental or intentional. But after witnessing Ballack’s harassment of Ovrebo, the in-his-face arm waving and yelling, the AFL has done well to attempt to completely stamp out such overt harassment by confronting the issue at its core, making it clear the umpire is to be protected.
While Ballack may or may not have made contact with Ovrebo, the abuse and body language can be described as nothing less than an attack in itself.
Drogba’s diatribe also showed just how out of touch and arrogant some of football’s elite truly are.
While Drogba and Ballack could retreat to their mansions and millions to drown their sorrows, Ovrebo had to be smuggled out of Britain having received a number of death threats.
In the intense atmosphere of crucial matches, perspective is often lost, and the result is talk of conspiracies, fixes and common bully behaviour.
As a practicing psychologist, Ovrebo could actually assist some of Chelsea’s players to put their own ‘performances’ under the microscope.
UEFA is currently examining the incidents and will announce next week whether they will hand out any punishments. You hope they have the fortitude to rise to the challenge and stamp this ugly side of football out once and for all, decisively and without the slow and laborious process that it usually takes football authorities to stamp out such blights on the game.
See diving as an example.
While not excusing Ovrebo for an obviously disappointing match in which he made some incorrect calls, or lack of calls to be more accurate, human error is to be expected from referees, especially in football with its resistance for all things ‘technological’ such as video replays.
Hence the enormous pressures on the officials on the park to make the big calls, a harder task in the cauldron of packed and hostile stadiums on tense nights such as that at Stamford Bridge.
Human error is an expected part of sport at all levels and we have to learn to excuse it for referees as we do with players, while ensuring such mistakes are minimised through proper training, experience and support.
The same high standards at that level, however, should also apply and under-performing referees should be moved on or benched if their performance is not up to scratch.
On the night of the controversial semi-final, I found myself at a suburban basketball stadium in Adelaide watching social games and the treatment the umpires sometimes receive, especially for what are social competitions, is sad.
Even worse is when you see kids talking back to the refs and parents and coaches who should know better doing the same. It’s a common occurrence.
Not surprisingly the umpire in charge was advertising to cover his desperate shortage of umpires.
Who would be an umpire or referee, especially at the elite level, a workplace in which you are often treated with contempt, despised, verbally abused, face incredible pressures and must make knife-edge calls sometimes on your lonesome?
You are vilified for your bad performances but your good performances receive little to no praise.
Yet, whether you like it or not, without them we would have no sport.