UEFA Champions League 2009 - 10
previous years:
2005 - 06
2006 - 07
2007 - 08
2008 - 09
Unfortunately, due to lack of general interest, starting this season the Champions League isn't covered any more on FairFootball.
I'm probably going to do the World Cup this summer, then it ends.
It was a good thing, definitely worth doing, I still think FairFootball is very much needed in today's state of football. But it looks like I'm in a very small minority, so that's it.
My thanks to the few who've shown interest and appreciation.
However, a few comments on the most important ref errors of this CL season are in order. They don't amount to a full FairFootball coverage but the conclusion is still quite obvious.
Inter benefited of consistent ref help in their tie against Barcelona; probably also against Chelsea but since I haven't watched those games I won't comment. Against Barca though, there were 3 wrong decisions going Inter's way. In the first leg, Alves was denied a pretty clear penalty for a foul from behind; Inter's last goal was scored from an offside. In the second leg, Barca were canceled a goal for a definitely wrong handball decision. Any one of these 3 decisions would have seen Barca through if they had been made right. So it's safe to say that the FairFootball winner of the tie was Barca.
Bayern also were helped by that unbelievable non-offside call of the Ovrebo brigade against Fiorentina (which OTOH was in the round of 16 so wouldn't have been considered for FairFootball anyway).
It has to be said, the Barca-Inter bogus handball is definitely one of the worst, possibly the worst football ref decision ever, judging by the magnitude of the error as well as by the context (the importance of the decision, it meant an incorrect Champions League winner). And 2010 is probably the worst season ever for football officiating, or at least in recent times, say last 25 years; aside of the bogus handball and the Ovrebo offside, there were the 2 major blunders of the World Cup: the Tevez offside and the Lampard goal.
May 22: Inter beat Bayern in the final 2 - 0, rightfully and quite conclusively, nothing much to report here.
Since the FairFootball winner of the Barca - Inter tie was quite clearly Barcelona, it follows that they are also this season's FairFootball UCL winners.
Unfortunately, we have to conclude that for the 4th year in a row (at least), the UCL is won by ref errors.
I welcome opinions on FairFootball-related issues at the e-mail address
FairFootball.com domainsbyproxy.com
(place the @ appropriately).