by Graham Poll
Barbs said I was being paranoid; that Ken Ridden was just being cagey. Other people scoffed at the idea that I might not go to Portugal as well. In October I rang Yvan Cornu, UEFA’s referees’ manager, on another matter and, in the course of our conversation said, ‘I know my European marks have been good …’ Cornu interrupted. He said, ‘No, they’ve been exceptional.’
That was reassuring and at the end of our chat I felt more upbeat. But the doubts gnawed away and I learned that Ken Ridden was upset about me. I was very active in the Select Group in England, and was trying to assist Philip Don as the manager of the Group. Someone misinformed Ken that I was manoeuvring to get Philip a top job – Ken’s job on UEFA’s referees’ committee. This was not true. So I telephoned Ken. He said, ‘Graham, I do have to tell you at this point there are some committee members backing Riley and not you.’
I asked, ‘So how does it look?’
He said, ‘As ever, Graham, the criteria will be marks. It’s as simple as that. Marks will determine whether you go or not.’
Mike Riley had received a low mark in a Champions League qualifying tie. Given my sequence of marks, that meant it was impossible for him to have a higher average than me. So I said to Ken Ridden, ‘I don’t think I’ve got anything to worry about then.’
I was wrong. In December, the UEFA referees committee discussed the appointments for Portugal. My mobile was off and when I turned it on there was a message telling me to ring UEFA. My first thought was that I had been given another European club fixture. I was not expecting any call about Euro 2004. That announcement would be made through the normal, formal channels. But when I telephoned, I was told Yvan Cornu wanted to speak to me. At that moment, I knew.
When Yvan came on the phone, I said, ‘It’s not good news, is it.’ It was a statement, not a question.
He replied, ‘No, I’m afraid it isn’t. Unfortunately the decision has gone against you and you’ve not been selected for Euro 2004.’ Mike Riley had been chosen ahead of me. Yvan said, ‘The criteria used to select the match officials for Portugal were marks, age and previous tournament experience.’
My marks were ahead of Mike Riley’s. He was a year younger than me, which was not significant because, in international terms, we would both retire between the same tournaments. I said to Cornu, ‘So it must be based on previous tournaments.’
He replied, ‘That’s the only conclusion I can come to.’
He told me I should not be too disheartened, which was easier said than done. But he said to keep going because there was always the 2006 World Cup in Germany. He added that, given how well I was refereeing, I would have every chance of being selected for Germany.
Somehow I packed my football bag and left for the following day’s match: Newcastle against Liverpool, live on Sky. I missed another Steven Gerrard two-footed tackle but, frankly, I don’t know how I managed to do the game at all.
I learned later that, at the UEFA meeting, Ken Ridden had proposed Mike Riley instead of Graham Poll. When challenged, he had reminded the others that they had an agreement not to interfere with another country’s nominations.
I would have understood if Ken had sat me down and said, ‘I know it was not necessarily your fault, but Euro 2000 and the World Cup 2002 did not work out for you and I’m not going to put you forward as England’s representative for Euro 2004’ – but we did not have that conversation. The only time we talked about my not being selected for Euro 2004 was a long time after the tournament finished. In November 2004, Ken was the assessor when I refereed Everton against Fulham. He asked me to talk to a delegation of Norwegian referees after the game and I travelled back with him to his hotel. He said, ‘Everyone is remarkably impressed by the way you have dealt with the situation [of missing Euro 2004]. You have come back stronger and you are refereeing extremely well.’
I let my frustration overflow. I said, ‘You always said the selection for Portugal would be on marks. I know this was not the case and so do you. I can move on and I can work with you but I will never, ever forgive you for hurting me and my family.’
He said, ‘I know. I was wrong.’
I never did and never could hold a grudge against Mike Riley. He did nothing to influence Ken Ridden or push himself for Euro 2004 at my expense. When he was chosen he was stunned and embarrassed but naturally pleased.
Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, some referees at Staverton could not hide their glee when I was not selected. Graham Barber, Paul Durkin, Steve Dunn, Alan Wiley, Rob Styles, Andy D’Urso, Mike Dean, and Steve Bennett were the most supportive and Riley showed genuine empathy, which I appreciated immensely. Others enjoyed the fact that I had been kicked in the teeth.
It was hard to watch Euro 2004 without an agenda. I thought I would simply be an England fan, cheering David Beckham and the boys from my armchair, but I took as much interest in the refereeing as the progress of my country and I found myself with too many negative thoughts, almost wanting referees to make mistakes.
I did not like discovering that trait in me, especially after others at Staverton had wallowed in my misfortune, so I spoke on the telephone to Craig Mahoney, the Select Group’s sports psychologist. I asked if I should continue to watch the Euro 2004 matches.
He said, ‘Of course you should. You should keep in touch with top-level European refereeing and international football. You are going to be refereeing games like these so it is important you watch them. But the emotion you should have and continue to feel throughout the tournament is anger. You should be angry that you aren’t there. Not bitter but angry.
‘Going into next season, you should harness that anger to referee really strongly. You will need a motivation so use this anger to raise your own game. You are already at the top, but great sportsmen find something to make them kick on and become even better. Use your anger to make yourself better.’
He told me to go and see him. So I did. At our meeting, I said that, despite his words, I had no chance of going to the 2006 World Cup. He said, ‘Well which English referees do have a chance?’
I replied, ‘Mike Riley, obviously. He is in pole position, or Poll’s position. And Steve Bennett. He is going well.’
He responded, ‘Well, what if Riley has an injury and Benno loses form? Who else from England is in the top group of European referees?’
I replied, ‘I am.’
Craig drove the point home, saying, ‘So you must have a chance. How big a chance would you say you and the others have got?’
I said that I thought Riley was 80 per cent, Benno maybe 15 per cent and me 5 per cent.
He said, ‘Right. When you arrived you said you had no chance. Now your own estimate is a 5 per cent chance. How can you make that 10 per cent?’
Craig got me to talk about my routine before matches and I mentioned, in passing, that I usually had a couple of glasses of wine on the night before a European match.
He said, ‘Right. Cut out the wine. Show people you have made a change; are making a special effort. Make the people in UEFA think, “Look at Pollie – he is so determined.” Make them think that they cannot ignore you.’
I had my target. I would raise my game. I would aim for Germany 2006.
So I kept viewing Euro 2004 on TV and watched Urs Meier rule out what England thought was a winning goal in the quarter-final against Portugal. Sol Campbell thought he had scored but my friend Urs ruled that John Terry had fouled Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo. I can understand why Meier made the decision. It was a subjective call, but it was an honest call. It was an unpopular one in England but referees should not shirk decisions because they are unpopular. And without Terry’s suspect challenge, Meier would not have had a decision to make.
England lost on penalties. David Beckham slipped as he took his kick and scooped the ball up over the crossbar. But, of course, the English media decided the referee was the man responsible for England’s exit. In Switzerland, Urs Meier’s fourteen-year-old son was approached by an English tabloid newspape
r who asked whether his father ever hit him or mistreated him in any way. Reporters and some supporters camped outside the Meier home and so Urs stayed away. He only had six months to go as an international referee and I know that it took tremendous strength of character for him to see out his remaining time and not allow the mob to beat him.
A year later Meier was a guest of the Football Association when Arsenal beat Manchester United in a penalty shoot-out to win the FA Cup. When his face was shown on the big screens, boos rang out at the Millennium stadium. Sometimes it is difficult to be proud to be English.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Arsenal, United and That Game
The 2004/05 season saw seismic events in English football, but they involved a Portuguese, a Russian, a Frenchman and a Scot. An Englishman based in Tring was involved in some key moments, and I would like to tell you about them.
The Portuguese, of course, was José Mourinho. The Russian was Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea. Together they set about making Chelsea champions for the first time in fifty years. The Frenchman, Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, and the Scot, Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United, seemed more concerned about their own enmity than about the newcomer. We all soon learned that we could not ignore Mourinho, however.
Just before the start of that 2004/05 season I was invited along to Chelsea’s training ground, which was then at Harlington, to the west of London. I was asked to brief the players about changes in the Laws of the Game and some new interpretations.
Mourinho welcomed me into his office and we talked about the two European ties I had refereed when he was coach of FC Porto in Portugal. He said, ‘I want you to tell us what we need to do and how we can get through the season without upsetting referees.’ Recalling that remark now in the light of what has happened since, I am surprised that he kept a straight face.
Mourinho was complimentary. He said, ‘Chelsea want to be the best so we wanted the best referee here.’ He was helpful: when I pointed out that I had a flight to Switzerland later that day, he brought the players’ meeting forward a little. He was restrained: he took a back seat as I ran through the law changes and answered questions from the players.
It went very well, I thought, and there were no problems a couple of weeks later when I refereed Mourinho’s first Premiership match, in which Chelsea beat Manchester United.
But, in December 2004, I was in charge of Chelsea’s visit to Arsenal. That was when Mourinho ceased to think I was the ‘best referee’ and when my opinion of him changed. The game was an epic. It ended 2–2 and was full of good football, but the next day’s headlines highlighted a controversy over a goal scored from a free-kick by Arsenal’s Thierry Henry. Well, the media thought it was a controversy, and so did Mourinho and his players – I just applied the Laws.
I penalized a foul, about five yards outside the penalty area, in line with the left-hand post. Thierry stood over the ball as the Chelsea players shuffled into position in front of him. Thierry asked me, within earshot of some Chelsea men, ‘Quick or slow? Can I take it, please?’
I replied, ‘Yes.’ I stepped aside and gestured with my arm that the kick was about to be taken. Petr Cech, the Chelsea keeper, was still standing by the left-hand post (his right), making sure that part of the goal would be covered by the defensive ‘wall’ of players. Chelsea’s Eidur Gudjohnsen realized what was about to happen and tried to get his goalkeeper to move to the middle of the goal. At the moment Eidur turned his head to shout at Petr, Thierry clipped the ball towards the unguarded side of the goal. It went in and Chelsea went potty.
Thierry’s goal made it 2–1 to Arsenal, but Eidur equalized later and Chelsea remained at the top of the League. That did not appease Mourinho. When he addressed the media, he said, ‘If you can forget the way Arsenal scored their second goal – if you can call it a goal – the result was correct. But it’s difficult for me to forget Arsenal’s second goal, so I don’t think the result was fair. If I speak about it maybe I would have to go to the FA and be sent to the stands for a few weeks or pay a large fine, and I should keep my money for Christmas presents. I am more than unhappy, but I cannot say the words in my heart and soul. I just cannot do it.’ Then he added this quite extraordinary postscript: ‘In pre-season, we had a top referee at our training ground who showed us all the rules of football. So I have no doubts about it. One of the things he explained to us was walls, distance, whistle – everything was clear. I have a lot of respect for Mr Poll. He is a top referee. But the rules of the game are the same all over the world – in China, Japan, Mexico or England, in the top league or under-15s.’
Mourinho did not bother to tell anyone that the ‘top referee’ who had explained the Laws to Chelsea was Mr Poll. And if he honestly thought that I had talked about ‘walls, distance, whistle’ at that briefing, then he was not listening. I did not deal with the subject of taking free-kicks because nothing had changed, and I was only dealing with new Laws and new interpretations. The situation with quick free-kicks was exactly as it had been two years previously when I had allowed Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink to score for Chelsea in an FA Cup replay before West Ham had organized their wall. Arsène Wenger commented, after Thierry’s goal against Chelsea, that the players should know the Laws and the goalkeeper should remain alert. Hear, hear!
What was instructional from my point of view was that Mourinho used me as a scapegoat for his team’s lack of awareness – and that he produced a version of my visit to the training ground which was not what I knew had happened. Mourinho’s version suited his message, but it was not accurate.
A couple of months after that game at Highbury, my friend the Swedish referee Anders Frisk was the recipient of even more unacceptable criticism by Mourinho. Again, the Chelsea manager’s version did not tally with the facts. Anders sent off Chelsea’s Didier Drogba in the second half of a Champions League match against Barcelona at the Nou Camp stadium. Afterwards, Mourinho claimed that he had seen Barça manager Frank Rijkaard enter the referee’s room at half-time. That was against UEFA regulations and the implication was that Rijkaard had influenced Anders in some way, and that had led to the sending-off of Drogba.
The irrefutable truth is that Rijkaard did not enter the ref’s room. We know that for certain, because Pascal Fratellia of UEFA was in the room with Anders. But Mourinho had a version which suited his purposes, and Chelsea fans believed their manager. Anders retired prematurely from refereeing, FIFA announcing that it was because of ‘death threats against his family’.
When I missed out on Euro 2004, Anders had been wonderfully supportive. He told me, ‘I feel someone has wronged you, so do what you can to make it right. I think you are a fantastic referee. The best ship is sitting at the harbour. You must sail again.’
When Anders decided he did not want to risk going to sea again, to use his metaphor, I was personally saddened for him as a man and a friend. I was also saddened for refereeing and for football.
With his abilities as a motivator, organizer and tactician, José Mourinho does not need to target referees – to use them as diversions when his team does not win and to put them under pressure to try to affect their decision-making. He had some success doing just that when he was working in Portugal, and so he imported the tactic with him to England. I also believe, fervently, that he made Chelsea players think it was acceptable – desirable even – to blame referees for their own failings. Because José produced inaccurate accounts of events to fit his indignant view of the world, the Chelsea players thought that was the correct way to behave as well. After I sent off John Terry against Spurs, the Chelsea captain had no qualms about implying that I and the other three match officials were part of a conspiracy. The Chelsea captain was just taking his lead from the Chelsea manager.
Don’t forget that in my last match at Chelsea, when they played Manchester United and Senhor Mourinho used atrocious foul language, I learned exactly what sort of behaviour the Chelsea manager thought was acceptable towards match offici
als. José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix is a truly great coach, but as a human being his methods are open to question.
So, let’s leave him. Let’s move on to two other managers near the top of the English League in that 2004/05 season – Arsène Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson – and let me tell you about refereeing the match between their teams at Highbury which I consider one of my best performances of my career.
To put the fixture in context, we need to know about a game in which Mike Riley was the ref. That was in October of that 2004/05 season, at Old Trafford. Arsenal went into the game hailed as ‘The Invincibles’. They had put together a sequence of forty-nine unbeaten games in the Premiership. But in match number fifty, Sir Alex’s men won 2–0.
It was a bruising, bitterly contested encounter, and long-standing hostilities between the clubs were bubbling just below the surface throughout the game. They erupted afterwards in the tunnel and in the dressing rooms area. In a scuffle between players and staff on both sides, slices of pizza were hurled.
So when the season reached the return fixture, at Highbury in February, the game did not need any hyping-up. That did not stop Sky from doing just that, of course. The satellite TV company showed endless repeats of previous red card incidents between the teams. I took it as the highest possible compliment that I was appointed to take charge of a game which newspapers predicted would be ‘unrefereeable’. I understand that both clubs asked for me to be in charge, which, again, was a tremendous compliment. I had earned the respect of two clubs with whom I had a fairly chequered history.
Sir Alex Ferguson is not exactly known for praising referees, but he is well known for complaining if referees do not add on enough time (if his team are trailing) or when they add too much time (when his team are winning!). At one game at Old Trafford, at the start of the 1996/97 season, United fought back from 2–0 down to level the scores but because I ‘only’ allowed five added minutes, Fergie raced towards me at the finish of the match. Brian Kidd, his assistant at the time, got hold of one sleeve of his manager’s coat but Fergie was so determined to get to me, he wriggled out of the coat. Thankfully, his assistant managed to grab his other arm and keep him away from me.