No Apology Given To China Referee Attacked By Players

Today (Thursday 30 July 2009), a full four days after China referee He Zhibiao (何志彪) was harangued by Tianjin football players, I Googled to see if there had been any apology given to the referee.

I used search terms: referee china chased 2009 which gave about 63,400 results.

I then used search terms: referee china chased 2009 apology which gave about 11,500 results. However, looking closely at the results, it is obvious that there was no apology given to the referee.

The closest to an apology was the Xinhua news story which said:

Sun Jianjun, head coach of Tianjin Football Team expressed his apologies at the press conference after the match.

But that is definitely NOT an apology to the referee. In my view, the referee deserves an apology.

In contrast, at least Didier Drogba officially and publicly apologised to Norway referee Tom Henning Ovrebo the day after his intimidation of the referee on 6 May 2009 during Chelsea's exit at the Champions League semi-final stage against Barcelona.