Anders Frisk

From The Straits Times:

March 13, 2005
Thugs force top referee to retire

They threaten to harm Frisk, whose forehead was earlier split open by a lighter, and children


Rob Hughes

UNTIL this weekend, Anders Frisk basked in the challenge of being one of the world's leading football referees.

On Friday, he suddenly handed in his whistle and told the Swedish Football Association that he would never step onto a soccer field again.

Threats from Chelsea thugs against him and, more worrying, against his children, obliged the 42-year-old who runs an insurance agency in Gothenburg, his home city in Sweden, to walk away from the game he loves.

Last summer Urs Meier, the leading Swiss referee, quit when his Internet site was bombarded by 16,000 abusive e-mail from English fans - or so called fans - many of them making explicit threats to his life, his green grocery business, and his family in Zurich.

We are facing anarchy.

I know Meier superficially, but Frisk I know better.

A year ago, we journeyed to Sierra Leone together on a mission for the International Red Cross, who took three top Uefa whistlers to the refugee camps for children displaced by civil war.

Frisk was brave in circumstances where health was at risk from mosquito bites, from the lingering threat of terrorists, from the possibility of violence breaking out in camps where he refereed games of youths.

He was warm-hearted when we witnessed the homecoming of two young children to the father they had been told was dead five years ago.

He reacted like the father he is, with concern for the children.

This man has run the gauntlet of appalling violence this season. In Rome's Olympic Stadium, his forehead was split open by a cigarette lighter thrown deliberately at him after he dismissed Philippe Mexes of Roma in the Champions League against Dynamo Kiev.

Unable to carry on with such an open wound, and unwilling to allow a deputy to referee where safety could not be guaranteed, he called off the match.

Francesco Totti, the captain of Roma and the same player sent off in disgrace for spitting into the face of an opponent at Euro 2004, compounded the disgrace by telling the Roman press Frisk was biased.

Last month, Frisk sent off Didier Drogba, the Chelsea centre-forward, after five clear fouls from the player. Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, manipulated the situation by refusing to attend the post-match press conference.

Chelsea, increasingly run as if they are under the impression that, like the Russian mafia, they are a law unto themselves, then made insinuations that the Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard entered Frisk's dressing room at half-time and - according to Mourinho - distorted the referee's decisions after half-time.

It is the second time Mourinho has used the media to make such statements.

The FA in England last week fined him a paltry �5,000 ($15,500) for suggesting that the English referee in a recent match with Manchester United was too friendly with Alex Ferguson, and biased against Chelsea.

These are tinder box allegations. Mourinho is attempting to intimidate match officials through the media - and the newspapers are dancing to his tune.

After the Barcelona affair, I happened to call Frisk to suggest a major interview for the London Sunday Times. He happily agreed, and the interview was scheduled for the day after tomorrow.

It is still on as far as I know.

But all calls to Frisk are being screened.

The man who has officiated at 118 matches, in all parts of the world over the last 10 years, has had enough.

'I do not dare let my kids go to the post office,' he says. 'The 16 days since the Barcelona match have been the worst of my life.

'It's made me realise what's important in life. I have never been afraid to make a decision on the field, but by letter, by e-mail, by telephone, my family has had such threats I cannot put them at risk.'

He still believes that he made an unbiased and a correct decision to show Drogba the red card.

Urs Meier still believes that he was justified in disallowing a late goal for England against Portugal at the Stadium of Light. But the Internet hooligans menaced him unmercifully with 16,000 poisonous e-mail, threats and abusive disparagement.

Newspapers in England made up quotes from Meier's estranged wife, and mounted vicious campaigns against him. Police had to guard his shop.

I may tell you more next week about the state of mind of Frisk, or I may not if he feels unable to keep our appointment.

But what I know is that this is a man who built his life around refereeing, built his body through daily gym sessions to be up with the play of modern millionaires, and built his reputation by never shirking a duty to implement the rules he does not write.

The theme of the Uefa refe- rees in Sierra Leone was to tell kids who lived under lawless violence that law and order is the only way in civilised society.

The world over, the laws of soccer are carried out by the man with the whistle - and in an African nation trying to re-establish respect for police and the law, Anders Frisk, Lubos Michel and Markus Merk were in the front line of taking out that message.

Now, because of appallingly ill-bred and, from their messages, ill-educated English louts who call themselves Chelsea fans, he has given up. He will run his business, close his doors, and take care of his kids.

Are you frightened by the image of the Beautiful Game this weekend?

I know I am.

For the first time I find myself agreeing with Rob Hughes. Anders Frisk is in my opinion the second best referee in the world after Pierluigi Collina. His performance in Euro 2004 is literally flawless. And it is a sad day that a top top referee has to retire because of such threats, especially given the prevalence of crap referees like Uriah Rennie and Mike Riley nowadays.

Sometimes you just can't help but feel helpless if you are small. For example, when you are a hawker last time, you are scared of gangs coming to collect protection money from you. When you are a tiny consumer, you are scared of scolding the IBM people for fear that they do a shoddy repair job on your laptop. Even when you are a top referee, you have to fear the hooligans even when your decision is spot on.

TosH says: Let's all buy guns and shoot each other to death. May the most powerful gun win.