At every football ground in the country these days, there are signs ordering respect. It is the new mantra, and a worthy one. Respect for referees is important. It should be drummed into players at a young age, as it was by Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest. If every manager was as tough on player discipline as Clough, there would be no slogans required. Yet respect is mutual, a two-way street, and having witnessed the cursed fate of Darren Fletcher of Manchester United this week, it is hard to respect any institution that cares so little for fairness or proportion.
Fletcher, the epitome of the hard working professional and a stalwart for United this season, made a sincere, if misguided, attempt to thwart a scoring attempt by Cesc Fabregas of Arsenal as their Champions League semi-final dwindled to conclusion. He got a toe to the ball, took slightly more of Fabregas and gave away a penalty that, considering Manchester United’s 4-0 aggregate lead at the time, was meaningless. At which point Roberto Rosetti brandished a red card.
As he did it, he would have known he was putting a player out of the Champions League final. He would have known, too, that this punishment in no way fitted the crime. This was not a standard red card. This was a decision that took away what may have been the pinnacle of this man’s career, for one misjudged challenge of little consequence. And there is no appeal, no process by which a referee can reconsider.
Now how is anybody meant to respect that? How is football meant to rally around a process that finds no room for humanity or compassion?
Rosetti may have been right according to the letter of the law, but even in criminal cases we allow mitigation. Sentences must be related to the circumstances or consequences; only in football does an official such as Rosetti (whose status as one of the leading officials in Europe was endorsed by Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, after the event) feel he has to abide unbendingly by the black and white of the rulebook for fear of incurring the wrath of a faceless overseer.
We must presume Rosetti, a hospital director who speaks three languages, is no fool. We imagine he had the intellect to see a way out, considering a penalty had been awarded. It would not have been so outrageous had he shown Fletcher a yellow card instead. He did not deliberately take the man, and the game was long dead as a contest. This would have been the sensible route, the benevolent way. It would have taken into account Fletcher’s honesty as a player, still trying to make the tackle at a stage in the game when he could have let Fabregas score at no risk to his place in the final.
Respect is not just about attitudes towards match officials. There is respect for the game, for its spirit, for justice, for fellow athletes; there is a whole raft of issues that should come under its banner, none of which were considered at the Emirates Stadium this week. Maybe if they were, we would not have so many posters on the subject littering up the place.
Martin Samuel is the chief sports writer of the Daily Mail, where his column appears on Monday and Wednesday