No weekend game for ditched Clattenburg

MARK CLATTENBURG has been left off the list of refereeing appointments for next weekend’s Premier League fixtures but neither the league nor his own governing body will confirm it is as a result of his performance in the Merseyside derby last Saturday.

A spokesman for the Professional Game Match Officials organisation, however, said: “All match officials’ performances are constantly monitored and assessed, with subsequent appointments being made on that basis.”

In August, Hampshire referee Rob Styles was stood down from the following weekend’s matches after admitting he awarded Chelsea an erroneous penalty against Liverpool at Anfield which enabled the London team to earn a 1-1 draw.

And on Saturday at Goodison Park, Clattenburg awarded Liverpool two penalties, sent off two Everton players and denied the hosts a penalty of their own when Joleon Lescott appeared to be wrestled to the floor by Jamie Carragher in the third minute of stoppage time.

Clattenburg also failed to send off Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt for a two-footed tackle on Phil Neville, showing the Dutch striker only a yellow card.

Neville was later and quite rightly sent off for deliberate handball just before Kuyt’s last-minute spot-kick winner.

Clattenburg has not yet owned up to any culpability, unlike Styles who apologised to Liverpool after the Chelsea penalty.

There was further confusion in the Goodison Park match, though, when Clattenburg appeared to bring out a yellow card when Everton’s Tony Hibbert was ruled to have fouled Steven Gerrard for Liverpool’s initial penalty early in the second half.

Gerrard appeared to speak to the referee who then brandished the red card but it seems Clattenburg had the card in the same pocket where he kept his notebook — which FIFA officials now say has to be used for recording sending-off offences.

This is not the first time Clattenburg’s decisions have come under the microscope. With no signal coming from an assistant he played on in the last minute of Manchester United-Tottenham game at Old Trafford when United keeper Roy Carroll fumbled Pedro Mendes’ long-range shot over his own goalline in January 2005.

TV replays showed the ball was almost two yards over the line but the game ended in a 0-0 draw.