Refs on the lash

[Chap]

After Saturday's performance maybe Dowd had been on the sauce!!

Czech police were forced to breathalyse a referee after he sent off three players for no apparent reason and spent a lot of his time on the floor. Tomas Fidra, who reportedly "smelt like a brewery", had been celebrating his birthday before the game between Jestrabi Lhota and Tynec-nad-Labem, which ended 1-1. In the end, the match was annulled by the regional football authority on the basis of fair play.

[PONGO49]

it won't make any difference to the standard of refs in this country

[Legion]

Full article

Footballers were stunned when a referee turned up drunk to officiate a match - and then started sending players off at random.
Referee Tomas Fidra took charge of a Czech league match between local rivals Jestrabi Lhota and Tynec-nad-Labem, but the players were suspicious even before kick-off as Fidra smelt strongly of alcohol and was talking about a birthday celebration he had just attended.

Fid...ra then confirmed those suspicions by stumbling around the pitch and falling over several times. When some of the Jestrabi players politely asked if he was alright shortly after half an hour into the game, Fidra promptly sent three of them off.

With the game in disarray thanks to the boozed-up ref, Jestrabi's opponents sportingly agreed not to attack against their eight-man opponents and the match finished in a 1-1 draw.

"His breath smelt like a brewery and he didn't hide the fact that he had been celebrating a birthday," Karel Dusek, an official from the Jestrabi Lhota club, told Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny.

Dusek added that the side had no choice but to keep on playing, despite the referee clearly being plastered.

"There's no rule which bans a drunk referee from taking charge of a match," he explained.

"If we had refused to continue to play, we could have been sanctioned."

Police were called to the scene and breathalysed Fidra, whose blood alcohol content was 0.194 per cent - more than nine times over the Czech drink-driving limit of 0.02. He faces a 12-month ban from refereeing for his actions.

League officials agreed to nullify the result, and the match will be replayed next month.

[Legion]

[eamonn]

Brilliant, like Basil Fawlty doing his Hitler walk.

[Witton Warrior]

I like the way he gives everyone a wave and a smile!