(no) Respect

So

The best referees command respect, hardly anyone dared to foul when Collina was in charge for instance. Frisk, another one of his generation sometimes didn't even have to book anyone and when Larrionda sais no, it is no and there will be no further discussion. Merk is one of them, so they say (UEFA and FIFA) but yesterday in Glasgow he wasn't. Yesterday he lost it a bit. It was chaotic, there was some cock fighting on the field, and he lost respect of the players when he awarded a penalty to Milan.

.....

Markus Merk must have lost the respect of both teams (and from the audience, thousands of hotheaded, possibly drunk Scotsmen). Milan players knew now they could get away with their tricks and the Celtic siders were just angry at him when he awarded a penalty when Naylor hugged Ambrosini in the box. Of course Ambrosini fell, he is Italian, but was it a foul? If it was, it is something that happens every time more that four players stand in the box. And if it was bad enough for a penalty, then there should be at least ten penalties in every match. Suddenly, after all those years of hugging and pulling shirts and pushing , Merk decides it is a serious enough foul to award a penalty......

Dida

Milan goalkeeper Dida is an idiot. He relies on cameras to show him lying in pain on the field, but he assumes the same cameras did not catch what really happened. Because Celtic Park Stadium does not have an anti tank mote to stop the fans from invading the field, one Scot came on the field, ran past Dida and touched his neck slightly: Ha Ha, you lost! Dida chased the culprit for a few yards and then suddenly decided to fall down, cry murder and even to have himself substituted. All this happened in the 4 minutes extra time. You could hear him thinking: We cant't win this the fair way, so maybe we can get UEFA to ban Celtic. All this seems to me a lack of respect: for the UEFA, the game, the viewers and for Merk.

PS

Dida gor banned for two UEFA club competition matches (and after some palavering only one) for lack of "integrity and sportsmanship". Celtic got fined 35,760 pounds, (the actual amount was in Swiss Francs, but no one knows how much they are worth).