After Tom Henning Øvrebø’s disastrous turn as a top-flight referee in the Champions League semifinals, the charge that referees from smaller nations shouldn’t be in charge of major matches was levied against him. All eyes immediately turned to the Champions League final match, looked at the referee sheet, and cringed: the official was Massimo Busacca, the top ref from the footballing powerhouse that is Switzerland.
Fortunately, Busacca was up to the challenge; he officiated a match that went incredibly smoothly, mostly because he became involved only when he needed to be. In the wake of Øvrebø’s fiasco, Busacca showed how little a referee’s country of origin impacted his ability to officiate in the top flight.
The bottom tiers, however, are another story. When fans of Switzerland’s FC Baden started attacking the pitch at the Young Boys-Baden Swiss Cup match this weekend, Busacca asked for an announcement to be played over the loudspeaker to have them ordered off. This caused Young Boys fans to taunt him, which resulted in…well, let’s let the Swiss Football Federation explain:
“During Saturday’s game between FC Baden and Young Boys in the first round proper of the cup, the top level Swiss referee “gave the finger” to fans who had insulted him.”
Busacca was probably particularly edgy about fan invasions; back in 2006, he was the official during the infamous “Basel Hooligan Incident”, where Basel fans attacked FC Zürich’s supporters and players following a decisive injury time goal. Busacca will serve a three-match for his conduct.
Alternate headlines:
“Young Boys Beat Baden, Get Fingered at Wankdorf”
“Young Boys Bern Over Busacca Fingering”
I’m 30 am I still allowed to giggle (read: laugh hysterically) at that headline?
Glad you liked it; it’s completely possible that I only wrote something up on this to make up a headline. “Young Boys Bern” is the best name in all of sports for this kind of thing.
Bonus: Before I found the actual picture of the incident, I was going to use the photo of Busacca meeting the Pope; I thought that might be a little too much, though.
[...] ever existed. Sports Pickle: The winners and losers of week 2 in the NFL. Not the teams stupid. Avoiding the Drop: This one’s here only because of the headline, sure the writeup is good, but the headline [...]
The only way this story could have been better is if Austrian club FC Wacker was involved.
Keep writing articles with such lurid titles and I won’t be able to read at work anymore.
“Mr. Eggs, we’ve seen that you’ve been viewing some inappropriate content on your computer at work, we’d like you to know that the things these sites are about is illegal and we’ve reported you to the FBI”
Yeah, Swiss football is pretty inappropriate…I dunno about FBI inappropriate though…