Herbert Fandel: Worst Referee of Euro 2008

Can there be any doubt? If you saw the Spain vs Italy quarterfinal match yesterday, you have to agree with me, no matter which team you were supporting. What was that, something like five blatant fouls by Italy inside the box, none of which were called? How many penalty kicks should Spain have had before the end of the game if the referee had actually called them?

And then he called all kinds of lesser fouls as long as they were outside of the box, preferably if they were against Spain. Crazy stuff. I guess the question should be, how much money did Herbet Fandel have riding on an Italy win that he would try to help them out so blatantly? Or did Italy pay him off? Italy’s club teams are certainly very familiar with match fixing, as recently as two years ago, right?

Fandel has a history of this as well. Found on Rate the Ref:

Fandel was awful tonight. I won’t say that he made mistakes — rather, he seemed to be either completely aloof of various calls or too harsh on others. Ironically enough, it appeared that he was blatantly favoring the Italians. I remember watching the Spain - N. Ireland qualifier, and much like in this match, he denied the Spaniards a clear penalty. That being said, whether or not the Italians had his ear, their strategy to allow him to call the match their way did not have the desired effect. Without a doubt this will be Fandel’s last match of the tournament, and it couldn’t be soon enough. He could very well have swung the outcome tonight. Poor performance.

Random Wikipedia vandalism on his page:

Fandel is a wanker and is the biggest twat waffle and worst reff in the euro 2008 cup

Twat waffle? What an awesome insult. Twat waffle. I can’t stop saying it.

He is a stunt-butt by occupation.

Stunt-butt isn’t bad, but it’s certainly no twat waffle.

This person has proof:

A SCUM BAG REFEREE, WHO WAS PAID OFF A NICE LUMP SUM OF MONEY FOR REFFING A GAME BETWEEN SPAIN AND ITALY IN EURO 2008….

PROOF AND HIS PERSONAL HOME INFORMATION AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.

Yeah, I believe that. Why not just post your proof there in the article where it’ll be available for anyone to see?

He also took charge of the Spain v Italy quarter final in Vienna on 22 June 2008, making some of the worst calls in any football game ever.

Can’t argue with that.

His performance in that match was absolutely horrendous, letting the Italians get away with many discretions.

Or that, although I’m not sure that’s the right use of the word “discretions.”

referre was horrible.A parcial juzge.Is a corrupt referee. El puto gordo intento que España perdiera en el partido de cuartos con 3 penalty no pitados.

WTF? That’s not English.

Right now his page has this:

He was roundly critized by many observers for his failure to call some critical penalties against Italy in the game.

Which may or may not stand. I’m sure someone will at least add “citation needed” eventually, if not remove it outright. Maybe Herbert will get on his computer at home and clean it up himself. Maybe then he’ll edit Spain’s page to say how they should have lost the match, and it’s too bad that awesome referee didn’t call some fouls against Spain when they were shooting their penalty kicks, so that Italy could take their rightful place as winners.

Seriously, worst refereeing I’ve ever seen, ever. In the entire history of everything, ever. The end.