By Jake Watson
5 Mar 2011 09:07:00
EPL: Alex Ferguson and Mark Clattenburg, Bolton Wanderers v Manchester United (PA)
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An unnamed referee has claimed that Mark Clattenburg considered quitting the game as he felt “powerless” following Wayne Rooney‘s elbowing of James McCarthy in Manchester United‘s victory over Wigan Athletic last weekend.
Clattenburg has been widely criticised for not spotting the incident at Wigan last week, though he did award a free-kick.
“Mark’s been castrated by the FA,” said one anonymous official.
“I know he’s felt about giving it all up,” said another.
Clattenburg was unable to sanction any punishment for Rooney after the game as he had already dealt with the incident during play – Fifa rules do not allow the re-refereeing of incidents if a decision had already been made at the time.
An unnamed official said: “Any form Mark was sent [after the game] would have contained two questions.
“The first part would say: ‘Did you see the incident, the coming together of players?’ Mark couldn’t lie. He’d not seen the elbow but he’d seen a coming together, because he awarded a free kick.
“On these emails, there’s an attachment saying that if you haven’t seen the incident, go to the second part. That has a clip and you have to re-referee the clip.
“But Mark was powerless. He’d been honest and said he’d seen the incident. Having seen the incident again on TV, he knew it was a red card by Rooney but he couldn’t do anything.”