THE ROMANIAN REFEREE who controversially — and incorrectly — awarded Switzerland a penalty in their World Cup play-off victory over Northern Ireland has admitted he made a mistake.
Ovidiu Hategan awarded Switzerland the spot kick during the first leg of the play-off tie at Windsor Park when he deemed Corry Evans to have handled the ball inside the area, although replays clearly showed the ball having struck his shoulder.
Ricardo Rodriguez duly converted and the visitors won the game 0-1, with a goalless return leg draw in Basel ending Northern Ireland’s dreams of qualifying for a first World Cup since 1986.
“It was a sad and not very nice moment for me,” Hategan told Romanian television this week.
“Sad because I made this mistake and painful because otherwise on our side we had put in a good performance. In the world of refereeing, it’s the same for goalkeepers: your mistakes get noticed.”
Hategan was chosen as Romania’s best referee last year by the country’s association of professionals and amateurs. But he is not among the 36 referees chosen by Fifa for this summer’s World Cup.
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Don’t worry about there not really a country anyway.
@Drew Walsh: It is funny how you attracted so many likes for one of most illiterate sentences I’ve ever seen here.
Tough on NI, but Switzerland are a much better team and would probably have won the tie in any case.
@Brendan O’Brien: really cos the north are very well organised. If it was nil all going into the second leg then they could have got a counter attacker victory
Good…ha ha…
Not much consolation for Norn Iron there. If anything, he admitting his mistake now, a few months later, makes it even worse for their fans to take. Comparing it to a goalkeeping mistake is also stupid, that’s the teams own hard luck not something that is caused due to the official’s incompetence.
A lot of good that is to michael o n neill and the economy of northern irl ? It is admirable by the ref to come up to the plate but better he shuts up because nothing will change the mistake . A moral discussion in the years to come . Yawn yawn