| Referees celebrated a record pay deal that makes them the
highest paid officials in Europe with a best-of-the-season 63 yellow cards and
three reds. The average annual salary of the men in black at the top level will
now be around 66,000 euros, not bad for taking charge of 15 or 16 games a
season. Leading the haul this week were last season's champion Llonch Andreu,
who somehow managed to show nine yellow cards to the Alavés side plus
three to Rayo without repeating the same name more than once, and Not-So-Bueno
Grimal, who hit double figures once again, including the sending off of Marcos
in the first half. But as our readers know, it is quality not quantity that
counts on these pages, and right now Daudén Ibáñez is a
cut above the rest. He picks up his second award of the season for his
performance after the 90 minutes were up in the match between Numancia and
Deportivo. First of all he sent off the visitor's Fernando for a second
bookable offence in the first minute of time added on, a hard decision for what
was a fairly innocuous foul, but then he completely ignored a rugby tackle by
Helder on Numancia's Barbu two minutes later in the penalty area. The challenge
would even have earned a disqualification in the World Wrestling Federation (I
think they call it a clothesline) as Helder 'accidentally' bundled into the
Numancia forward as he was lining up to shoot. The decision (or lack of it)
almost caused a near-riot amongst the usually peaceful home team supporters,
particularly angry after they had lost the week before to two dubious penalty
decisions, and manager Paco Herrera was almost speechless in the post-match
press conference. (29.10.00) |
