If it happens on your watch and things go wrong then you hold the hot potato, like it or not.
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If Mr Blatter enjoys the abundant perks of his fiefdom (and it is clearly his) he should also be held responsible for the stink of scandal.
That he was re-elected President without much opposition in the middle of a major FIFA investigation is a sports mystery that defies comprehension.
That he finally threw in the towel makes one wonder why he thought he’d ride the bull and it doesn’t change the fact that he got the votes. Let the experts go figure. I intend to move into murkier waters.
Many of you may not have registered that Rafael Nadal called on the ATP at Roland Garros not to have Brazilian Carlos Bernardes umpire him during the current French Open. Last month Carlos had sat in the high chair and handed Nadal two time violations during the Rio open.
poor rafael nadal. he only has a billion dollars and unbelievable good looks and once-in-a-generation talent and incredible legacy left now
— Bill Hanstock (@sundownmotel) June 4, 2015
Now, as a player, you can make a request like that, however out of line it is, and expect it to be rej-ected.
You want your hostility on record, so fine. When it is tamely accepted and the umpire sidelined then it opens a whole new can of worms. If players start to decide whom they want to referee their game and worse, whom they do not want, the fairness party cake has been sat on and squashed.
If being teed off with an umpire was the yardstick then during John McEnroe’s time they would never have got a match going because John would dump them all.
Surprisingly, not much of a noise was made over this issue and though Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic did express their surprise and concern, the pathetic capitulation by the ATP deserves to be condemned.
Nadal’s complaint was that Carlos was not courteous enough. That the rest of the umpiring squad did nothing to support their colleague is equally frightful. You blackballed the man and ruined his career and everyone’s seeking the sanctuary of silence.
Keep on doing this sort of disservice because the big boys can be bullies and make threats you might as well turn a tournament into a trial and give players peremptory rights to dismiss potential jurors without offering cause.
What’s the difference? ‘Sorry, I have OCD, my gut instinct says I don’t like you, so can we have another ump, please, no not that one either, he has shifty eyes.’
Then we can use the same measure on the linesmen and women, maybe fling out a couple of ballkids to flex our muscle.
Think of a situation where it spreads to other sport. Last month, during the IPL Chennai skipper M.S. Dhoni publicly criticised Richard Illingworth’s lbw decision against Dwayne Smith as ‘horrible’.
Now, what if Dhoni turned to the Indian team as its captain and somewhere soon down the road said, wo, boys, hold it, that Illingworth fella is an umpire so we are not going onto to the field till they change him.
Remember the match between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain in March which turned plug ugly with Dutch umpire Bjorn Kuipers looking more like a POW after he had red carded PSG striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Would PSG be allowed to protest playing under Kuiper’s supervision again? Sorry, we are sticking to the dressing room until you put him on a bus.
Anyway you hack it, what has happened at the French Open is a huge infringement of sport’s integrity at the supervisory level.
Once these compromises begin to be tolerated they will swiftly become the norm and the glory of the game as we know it will go to hell in a basket.
Let us insult the ref, get him a pair of glasses, moan about the idiot umpire, blame the linesman for flagging an offside and enjoy doing it because that is part of the package. Choosing him is not.
