Refs can’t come to grips with the language barrier

IT was interesting to note the other day that one of the wire services warned about “strong language” contained in one of its reports. This turned out to be what Everton’s James McFadden claims he said to referee Graham Poll: “That was f******g s**t”.

Poll, however, insists that the player called him a “cheat” and that is why he gave him a straight red card.

Two points here: firstly, since McFadden is a Scot, I’m sure even the most versatile linguist would struggle to distinguish between his pronunciation of s**t and cheat.