Turkish tantrum at Irish ref leads to walk-off

DUBLIN referee Richie Winters was at the centre of controversy yesterday as the Turkey team walked off the pitch in protest for half an hour just a minute before the interval in yesterday’s Under-19 Four Nations tournament game against Holland at Bray’s Carlisle Grounds.

The Turks took exception to Winters’s handling of the game, especially a penalty award scored by PSV Eindhoven’s Imad Najah on 33 minutes. That meant a yellow card for the Turkish coach Ogun Temizkanoblu following his protest to the fourth official. His assistant Soner Tollingug was soon to follow for kicking water bottles.

However, the real crisis came in the first seconds of added time in the first half. Volkan Dikmen, who had scored Turkey’s equaliser with a header on 38 minutes, was about to be yellow carded just before the interval when the Turks were instructed by their coaching staff to go to the dressing rooms in protest.

The Dutch, the referee and his assistants eventually took the same decision even though the half-time whistle had not been blown. In such situations, the match should have been abandoned, and there are FIFA precedents that Holland should have been awarded a 3-0 victory.

However, Winters had an Irish solution and after half an hour’s negotiations, the teams returned to the field. Winters restarted play from where it had ended and he belatedly booked Dikmen.

The one minute of added time was played out and the teams immediately turned around for the second-half. Holland eventually won 3-1 with second-half goals from Ricky van Haaren and Geoffrey Castillion and, with Ireland losing 1-0 to Portugal at Tallaght, the Dutch also won the tournament.