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Turkish injustice at Euro 2000
Posted: Saturday June 24, 2000 05:49 PM
Here at Euro 2000, the fact that Portugal is in the semifinals for the second time is cause for considerable satisfaction from the neutral's point of view. Their free-flowing, incisive football has often been a joy to behold. Joao Pinto's exquisite second goal against England in the group phase was, in my opinion, the best of the tournament so far, coming as it did as the climax of an end-to-end move that included some 16 passes. Portugal also possesses one of the main candidates for player of the tournament in exciting midfielder Luis Figo. Indeed, his influence on Portugal's 2-0 quarterfinal win over Turkey in Amsterdam was virtually complete, requiring Nuno Gomes to do little more than supply the finishing touch for both Portugese goals. Yet despite the deserved success of Portugal, Saturday's quarterfinal left a bad taste in the mouth. It wasn't the eight yellow cards that did it. In this day and age, it's as easy to come by a yellow card as it is to get a grass burn. Instead, it was the one red card that spoiled the game for me, and I imagine for most of those without a vested interest. Three men were to blame for the 29th-minute incident that ruined the match as a spectacle: Turkish defender Alpay Ozalan, whose G-rated flick made the referee see red; the official himself, Dick Jol of Holland, who reached for his card almost as a reflex action, with no pause for thought; and, perhaps most disgracefully, the apparently pole-axed Fernando Couto of Portugal, whose nervous system needs re-wiring if his reaction to Alpay's harmless poke is anything to go by. The Portugese defender clutched his face in agony after being prodded in the chest by the Turk, who then got his marching orders. (Couto, incidentally, was awarded UEFA's Fair Play award Saturday for his efforts to stop his country's fans from jeering the German national anthem on .) I know all this because I wasn't at the game. Instead, I watched it here in Brussels on television, where the injustice of the referee's decision was relayed to viewers within seconds of it being made.
My question is: "Why aren't the officials in these high profile tournaments afforded the same opportunity?" In my opinion, and that of the pundits on the TV channel I was watching, the worst Alpay was guilty of was petulance. He didn't really strike Couto; it was more of a gesture of annoyance after being roughed up in the challenge. Granted, you can't touch another player in anger and expect to get away with it. But surely in cases like this, the punishment is way out of line with the crime. The Turkish player would have received the same penalty if he'd broken Couto's jaw with a Tyson-like hook, or scythed him down with a cynical tackle that ended his career. By contrast, a gentle tap in the solar plexus is, in the slang term I grew up with, "handbags at 10 paces." Yet still, Alpay walked. Had the referee seen a replay of the incident, I just can't believe he would have made the same decision, which is one good reason for football adopting the practice sometimes used in cricket, where a third official can arbitrate on controversial decisions after consulting a video replay. Given that new technology often has football's lawmakers screaming in horror about eroding the referees' authority and destroying the ethics of the game, that is not going to happen, of course. But if not, why not give the referee at least some opportunity to use his discretion.
One way to do that in the area of discipline would be to introduce a sin bin and a third card in the referees arsenal -- the blue card, which would be equal to a 15 minute penalty. Losing a man for that length of time can obviously make a difference, as that was the gap in time between Alpay's sending-off and Gomez's opening goal. Transgressions therefore would not go unpunished, while at the same time it would ease the situation for the referee, who's often faced with a dilemma when an offence is worth more than a yellow card but not enough to warrant a red. The paying public too would benefit, as a result of being able to see a football match, not a football mismatch like the one we needlessly witnessed in Amsterdam. Terry Baddoo is co-host of World Sport, the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International. Baddoo is part of the World Sport crew that is in the Netherlands and Belgium covering Euro 2000.
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