If Iain Duncan Smith (MP for Chingford and Woodford, and Tottenham fan) were to double up in his spare time as a football referee, it is unlikely that the Premier League would submit to a request by him to blow the whistle in a game between Tottenham and Arsenal. It would be even less likely if a general election were just a few weeks away.
The Football Federation of Ecuador (FEF), entertains no such scruples. Or at least didn’t until September last year when it allowed Byron Moreno, a referee who doubles as a politician, to officiate at a first-division match between a team called Liga de Quito and Ecuador’s biggest club, Barcelona.
Outside his home country, Moreno is best remembered for the part he played in the World Cup game last year between South Korea and Italy. Among a host of contenders, that was the most memorably dubious refereeing performance of the tournament. South Korea won 2-1 and Italy went out of the competition, but only after Moreno had awarded a questionable early penalty to the host nation, disallowed an extra time ‘golden goal†by Damiano Tommasi and sent off Italy’s best player, Francesco Totti, for diving. A town in Sicily captured the mood of the Italian nation when it officially named a new row of public toilets after the Ecuadorean referee.
Inside his home country, however, Moreno ‘s fame rests more on what he did at that game a couple of months after the World Cup between Liga de Quito and Barcelona. What Moreno did in South Korea will remain seared on the Italian national memory in much the way Maradona’s ‘hand of God†goal lingers, 17 years after the fact, in the minds of indignant England fans. But there are precedents for the kind of decisions Moreno took in the Korea game. What he did to Barcelona broke new ground in the annals of refereeing infamy.
First, he allowed a Quito goal despite the fact that the linesman had raised his flag for offside, and pointedly kept his flag in the air after Moreno had signalled the goal. The Barcelona goalkeeper pleaded with him, on hands and knees, to go to talk to the linesman, but Moreno refused.
Despite his best efforts, however, when the 90 minutes were up Barcelona still managed to be 3-2 ahead. Whereupon Moreno kept playing extra time, and kept playing, ignoring the outraged shrieks from the Barcelona players and bench, until in the 100th minute Quito equalised. That might have been the point to call it a day. But no. The game was only going to be over, it seemed, once Quito had scored the winning goal. Which Quito duly did. They won the game 4-3. After what might be a world record in a professional game: 13 minutes of added time.
All of which might not have been quite so scandalous had there not existed a staggeringly obvious conflict of interests between Moreno’s political aspirations and the outcome of the game. For he was running for election to a post on the city council of Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Voting day was barely six weeks away and the constituency he was seeking to represent, in a district called Ponceano, was known for its fanatical dedication to — sure enough — Liga de Quito Football Club. Few things would have brought more joy to the hearts of the electorate than victory over Barcelona.
The newspapers, which had leapt patriotically to his defence when the Italians accused him of skulduggery, did not hold back this time. The headline in Expreso ran: ‘Byron Moreno Wins Votes in Ponceanoâ€. El Telegrafo said: ‘Moreno Damaged Barcelona for 50 000 Quito Votesâ€. The club president of Barcelona called Moreno a ‘miserable immoral scoundrel†who had reduced a game of football to a party political rally.
The FEF suspended Moreno for 20 games and Fifa dropped him from its international referees list, announcing it was launching an investigation into allegations, published in a Japanese newspaper and widespread on Italian websites, that Moreno had been bribed to rule in favour of South Korea in the Italy game. But if there is one thing that referees and politicians have in common it is a thick skin. He did not abandon his political campaign. Neither did he abandon his slogans: ‘Red Card to Corruptionâ€, ‘Red Card to Mismanagementâ€, ‘Red Card to those who dishonour the names of Quito and Ecuadorâ€.
The Ponceano electorate were not convinced. Delighted as they may have been by his performance in the Barcelona game, it seems that they resolved, in the quiet of the voting booth, that perhaps it was Moreno who was ruining the nation’s good name. He was trounced.
Humbled and, so it seemed, fleetingly wise, Moreno ‘threatenedâ€, as an Ecuadorean newspaper put it, to quit refereeing. ‘I must make it clear,†he declared, ‘that as an honest human being I prefer to die on my feet than live on my knees.â€
Whereupon he accepted an invitation to appear on an Italian television programme called Stupido Hotel. In it he was relentlessly lampooned for two hours (the producer explained Moreno had been asked on because he was the most hated man in Italy), but seemed happy to play along. He first appears in the programme walking on stage in a dark raincoat carrying a suitcase full of money. A couple of old men sidle up to him and hiss ‘Stupido! Cretino!†To which he replies, ‘Gracias, graciasâ€. At the end of the programme when he is dressed in his referee’s kit, a bucket of water drops from the ceiling on to his head. The audience squeals with delight.
That was two weeks ago. One week later, Fifa announced it had concluded its investigation into Moreno and had exonerated him of all wrongdoing. Moreno promptly demanded that the FEF cancel his 20-game suspension and Fifa restore his name to the international referees list. His future, though, would appear to lie in Italy. A sports business consultant told RAI television that Moreno had become ‘a cult character†in Italy with the potential to make a lot of money.
Moreno’s wife subsequently confirmed that her Byron had received offers from Italian sportswear firms to advertise their products. —