We all knew that the events of last night won’t be sorted out for weeks or even months to come, but it’s clear that any decision that UEFA make will be scrutinised beyond belief.
Thankfully thousands of self-appointed Romanian language experts have sprung up over night to give their version of events, but the alleged comments by fourth official Sebastian Coltescu go just beyond the actual words he said.
It seems to be generally accepted that the word he used isn’t offensive in isolation, but clearly the tone and the intention behind the words sparked genuine fury from the players and coaching staff so it’s going to be a tough one to get to the bottom of.
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The scenes last night were unprecedented so we have to assume something dreadful was said to provoke the reaction from both teams, so there will be calls for UEFA to ban the ref or strike him from the list.
Interestingly it appears that they won’t even need to make that decision because he was already removed from the FIFA list and intended to stand down soon:
Coltescu (43) was just removed from the FIFA list two weeks ago, this was supposed to be his last European campaign. https://t.co/82ZI9vggIi
— Emanuel Ro?u (@Emishor) December 8, 2020
If he was removed from the list then it does raise questions as to why he was even part of the officiating team for this fixture, but it’s clear that he didn’t have much longer left at the top level anyway.
That will make it easier for UEFA to quietly urge him into retirement, but the incident has simply enhanced the divisions in some quarters so they need to get this right.