Chelsea lodge complaint over ref Clattenburg
Clattenburg, 37, made a string of controversial decisions during the match, including allowing Javier Hernandez’s winning goal to stand even though it was offside — and sending off Fernando Torres for diving although video evidence showed the Spaniard was clearly caught by United defender Jonny Evans. However, Chelsea’s post-match allegations are far more serious and, if proved, will send further shockwaves through a sport that has still not recovered from the high-profile case of John Terry, who was accused of racially abusing QPR’s Anton Ferdinand on the pitch at Loftus Road last year.
Terry was in the stands for yesterday’s match, serving a four-match suspension handed out by the FA, but — on a day when the rest of his team wore t-shirts in support of the Kick It Out, One Game, One Community ant-racism campaign — Chelsea claim their players are the victims this time.
A statement from the club read: “We have lodged complaint to the Premier League match delegate with regard to inappropriate language used by the referee and directed at two of our players in two separate incidents during today’s match. The match delegate will pass the complaint to The Football Association. We will make no further comment at this time.”
Nigerian international John Obi Mikel is understood to be one of the players in question.
The Premier League and Football Association have not yet responded to Chelsea’s statement although the Professional Game Match Officials Board is expected to issue a statement in due course.
Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo is believed to have confronted Clattenburg after the game about the issue, while Mikel also visited the referee’s room.
Meanwhile, Chelsea are also investigating reports of objects being thrown on the pitch during the game; and looking into how a steward was injured.
One steward was taken to hospital with an injured knee and it is not yet clear if he simply slipped or was hurt dealing with other incidents — including eye witness accounts that programmes and even seats were thrown from the stands by angry fans. A Chelsea spokesman said: “We are investigating all the incidents around that time. We don’t have anything further to report; we are looking at reports of objects that may have been thrown. The steward was taken to hospital with a knee injury. We don’t know how it happened, we are investigating.”
