Kelly dismisses relevance of referee’s nationality

IRELAND’S top referee yesterday insisted the home nation of his Norweigian colleague, Tom Henning Ovrebo, should have no bearing on any critique of his performance.

FIFA official Alan Kelly rejected vociferous claims across the water that the man at the centre of a Champions League storm was unqualified to take on such a high profile game due to the low level of his own domestic league.

“I don’t conform to that sort of mentality at all,” Kelly said yesterday. “If you use the country that Chelsea play in, Howard Webb is a very good referee, a referee that I have a lot of time for but he missed a handball from the Porto goalkeeper a yard outside the box in the Champions League quarter-finals last year and he was looking straight at it.