Nani's red card was justified

Similar to the first leg, both Manchester United's and Real Madrid's tactical conducts contributed to a highly tense match being fully tied until the English side finally scored the leading goal at the start of the second half, being quite fortunate against the background that Turkish assistant referee Tarik Ongun missed a tight offside position in the goal's build-up. Then, the most controversial decision of the whole Round of 16 occurred...

Cüneyt Çakır sending off Nani (c) Welt.de

Just a couple of minutes after this 1:0 goal, Turkish high profile referee Cüneyt Çakır, who is said to have pretty good chances to handle Wembley final this season, sent off Manchester's Portuguese striker Nani for serious foul play on his opponent Álvaro Arbeloa. That's what you call a soi-disant "game-changing decision": Immediately after this straight red card, Manchester United lost the defensive control over the match and quickly conceded two goals that decided the match in favour of Real. Besides diverse other crucial or more likely critical incidents, that will be reported more detailedly by our Blog Observer, the red card should be focussed on now.

Nani Red Card von larbitre92

You can easily detect that Çakır waited quite a long time before he issued the red card. That should however not be interpreted as a mere sign of hesitation, but rather as a respectful manner while dismissing a player, waiting until he will have stood up. It's also pretty probable that assistant referee 1 Bahattin Duran and/or fourth official Mustafa Emre Eyisoy had a certain influence on the assessment of this foul. At least, one may suspect that.

In the public perception (TV commentators, so-called "TV experts",  twitter-comments and even comments in this blog) the situation was naturally discussed in various ways, while one typical statement was repeatedly issued: "Yellow would have been enough". That was also my first thought, taking into account that one actually cannot accuse Nani of having deliberately fouled Arbeloa in this severe manner. He could now know that he was coming, that such a type of foul could come into existence at all. But that's not the question. If it was, then this red card would have been completely wrong. But it is not. While one cannot accuse Nani of having deliberately committed this foul, one may well accuse him of risking the mere opportunity that his stretched studs could seriously hurt an opponent. Severely endangering one's opponent, specially with stud-up and foot-up tackles, must be red-carded - the Laws of the Game (Law 12) clearly define that: "A tackle that endangers the safety of an opponent must be sanctioned as serious foul play." 

So, even though the sending-off might have aroused a harsh impression among supporters, spectators and players, Çakır was right in the end. Such brave decisions have to be measured at their legal correctness and the wellbeing of the player who was fouled - and not at the name who is sent off, nor at the immense size of the match we are talking about, nor at the specific minute or match context, when it was issued. Therefore, Çakır actually deserves respect and should be praised for this courageous call, having been aware that this decision would have a huge impact on the match and would make his evening much less smooth than otherwise. The referee observer present at this match, Pierluigi Collina, more than once emphasized his appreciation of referees who do not fear consequences in their brave decision-taking.

That's red, dear Sir Alex! (c) Focus.de

Though, there is a crux. Despite the positive assessment of this decision, there have been other crucial situations, and very probably there was a crucial mistake. But even if all these decisions had been correct, Cüneyt Çakır now has a problem with regards to a possible Wembley nomination: it will be difficult to appoint a referee for a Champions League final, who made a controversial decision which dominated the entire media during and after such a huge match, let alone the pressure that could evolve from the behaviour of some ManUtd. responsibles, including Sir Alex Ferguson, who - in spite of his advanced age - has still not learnt to fairly and circumspectly dealing with decisions taken by referees. This behaviour is by the way dangerous. UEFA has consequently opened a disciplinary process against Manchester United.

Thus, Çakır has surely lost more than he could win yesterday. At the same time, there may be no doubt about the fact that decisions have to be assessed and should be analyzed independently from a certain public perception. And yet, it is probably the best for this excellent referee to disappear for a while from the big stage, remembering what happened to Anders Frisk, Tom-Henning Övrebö and Urs Meier a few years ago.