‘Card happy’ referee to take charge of crunch tie
A referee with a history of sending off England players will oversee their attempt to reach their first World Cup final for 52 years.
Cuneyt Cakir, 41, who has shown red cards to John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Gary Cahill, was last night placed in charge of the country’s semi-final against Croatia tomorrow.
The vastly-experienced Turk was the referee who made the highly controversial decision to send off Nani in Sir Alex Ferguson’s final Champions League match in charge of Manchester United.
The three red cards shown by Cakir to England players all came in 2012. The first caused Terry to miss Chelsea’s Champions League final, although the club’s then captain only had himself to blame after inexplicably driving a knee into Alexis Sanchez in the second leg of their epic semi-final win over Barcelona.
Cakir then dismissed Gerrard for the first time in his England career in a World Cup qualifier against Ukraine, showing the captain two yellow cards. Gerrard, who was banned for the following game against San Marino, accused Cakir of being card happy, saying: “I don’t think there was a bad tackle in the game.”
The referee showed Cahill a straight red card in Chelsea’s Club World Cup final defeat against Corinthians after the defender kicked out at Emerson in the final minute of the game.
The referee’s most contentious red card, however, was reserved for Nani, with Cakir provoking outrage by dismissing the winger for a waist-high challenge on Alvaro Arbeloa in United’s Champions League last-16 second-leg defeat by Real Madrid in 2013.
United were leading 1-0 at the time and were ahead in the tie on away goals but went on to lose the game 2-1 and crashed out of Europe 3-2 on aggregate.
Ferguson was left “distraught” by the decision, which led Rio Ferdinand to applaud Cakir sarcastically after the final whistle and the referee received abuse and death threats via Twitter.
Tomorrow will be his second World Cup semi-final after he took charge of Argentina’s 2014 win against Holland.
It will also be his third match at Russia 2018 following Iran’s 1-0 Group B victory versus Morocco and Argentina’s 2-1 Group D win over Nigeria.