By Andrew Warshaw
October 29 – English football’s domestic racism problems, which appeared to be gradually subsiding, have been plunged into fresh controversy with Premier League leaders and European champions Chelsea lodging a formal complaint of “inappropriate language” by referee Mark Clattenburg during yesterday’s highly charged 3-2 home defeat by Manchester United.
Chelsea said the alleged language was used towards two of its players.
The hosts finished yesterday’s game, transmitted to millions of television viewers worldwide, with nine men as Clattenburg (pictured top, right) sent off Branislav Ivanović and Fernando Torres in the second half at Stamford Bridge.
Javier Hernández’s winning goal for United was also offside.
“We have lodged a complaint to the Premier League match delegate with regards to inappropriate language used by the referee and directed at two of our players in two separate incidents in today’s match,” a club spokesman was reported as saying.
“The match delegate will pass the complaint to the Football Association.
“We will make no further comment at this time.”
Although Chelsea did not identify which players had allegedly been verbally targeted, reports suggested one of them might have been midfielder John Obi Mikel (pictured top, centre) and the other one of Chelsea’s Spanish players.
The fresh allegations follow hot on the heels of the Terry-Ferdinand case but this time concern one of England’s best-known referees, a potentially dangerous precedent which could cause serious division between players and officials just at the time when some kind of stability is needed after all the recent friction.
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