O'Neill ups heat in verbal feud
The Celtic manager and his opposite number Frank Rijkaard had very different views about who sparked the tunnel fracas which saw Motta and Robert Douglas sent off.
The Barcelona man claimed that Balde was the instigator and team-mate Philip Cocu has since taken a swipe at their opponents' physical tactics.
But yesterday the Northern Irishman hit back at the Catalan giants arguing that Motta should not have even been on the field to see half-time after elbowing Balde just before the break.
"Bobo Balde actually was the one who got accosted in the tunnel from what the other players say.
"If we can get some sort of TV evidence to point that out, then great, but you can't say somebody has done wrong because somebody has made comments about the incident.
"I have seen an incident just two minutes from half-time when there was a deliberate elbow into someone's face from Motta. "He was lucky to be going down the tunnel at the same time as the other players. It was a straight red card for an elbow into Bobo Balde's face."
O'Neill is also backing goalkeeper Douglas, who was sent off with Motta as a result of the tunnel bust-up and is hopeful he will escape suspension to play in the Nou Camp.
The Celtic boss revealed he is waiting to receive referee Wolfgang Stark's assessment before going ahead with his appeal to UEFA.
The German official has admitted he did not see the incident and with the help of police and TV evidence the club believe they have a strong case.
O'Neill continued: "We are putting an appeal in and we're waiting for the referee's report to arrive which should be here today.
"Rab is still protesting his innocence and we're going to try and wait for all available evidence being there and see if it is possible to change their minds.
"It depends on what the fourth official says but if we gather everything up and put it to UEFA hopefully they might have a look at it and see it as some sort of mitigation.
"If there was enough TV evidence and the pictures were clear I'm sure UEFA would take those things into consideration."
If that fails, O'Neill will try to agree the return from loan of Magnus Hedman with Italian club Ancona.
O'Neill also believes Chris Sutton may recover from an ankle injury to play in the Nou Camp.
"He's making slow progress but it's progress," he said. "Nevertheless we will wait until the last possible minute. We have a full week and a wee bit more next week to take into consideration the possibility of starting the game in Barcelona."
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