Referee Cautioned

September 24th, 2011 | by: elaine | Comments Off

I won’t even ask if you remember Disaster South Korea in 2002. The ref, Byron Moreno, made ridiculous calls like gifting South Korea a penalty early on. Or Totti “diving” in the penalty area in extra time that saw him receive a second yellow instead of a penalty. Or Damiano Tomassi’s golden goal that was “offside” (but not really, according to everyone else in the universe.)

Well I had to laugh when I saw the story last year when that same Byron Moreno was arrested for trying to smuggle heroin into New York. He was a terrible ref, well known to be the worst ref in World Cup history, and clearly a terrible drug smuggler, too. There must be some justice in the universe, I thought.

So when I saw this week that he was to be sentenced, I hoped for a sentence that would reflect his lack of personal moral character, and maybe, just maybe would seem that Karma had paid him a visit. But I should have known that even bad referees are virtually immune to justice. He got 2 ½ years. Barely a caution.

So far Italians have served 9 years of a lifetime sentence handed down by his ridiculous refereeing. And he gets 2 ½ years for actually doing something wrong? There truly is no justice in this world.

And it’s not as if he was a one time referee offender. Amongst other offenses, he once received a twenty match suspension in his native Ecuador for calling 6 minutes of stoppage time in a particular match, but allowing play to continue for 13 minutes. During this time, the team which had been down 3-2 scored both an equalizer and a winner. I mean I’ve heard of game changers, but this ref clearly likes to play God.

My only consolation is that perhaps he will meet a lovely big Italian boyfriend while he’s in the clink. But even then, it’s not as if justice will ever be served. He changed the fate of an entire nation with his ridiculous calls back in 2002. History cannot be rewritten, and that kind of justice could never truly be served. But his self-inflicted incarceration does put a bit of a smile on the face, though. At least if refs are untouchable for their crimes on the pitch, they can be slightly human off of it.

When Elaine isn’t plotting revenge against corrupt referees, she visits the land of Twitter. If you follow her @ItaliaWCB you might just see her there.