Penalty fury fires up Swiss

By Angus Mackinnon

Feusiberg, Switzerland

June 8: Switzerland will head into Wednesday’s make-or-break clash with Turkey fired up by a belief that poor refereeing robbed them of victory against the Czech Republic.

The Euro 2008 co-hosts dominated the tournament’s opening match but went down to a 1-0 defeat after being denied what head coach Jakob Kuhn insisted were two clear penalties.

Kuhn had refrained from criticising referee Roberto Rosetti after the match but was still fuming on Sunday over the Italian official’s failure to award spot-kicks in connection with two incidents where the ball struck the arm of Czech defenders. "Yesterday (Saturday) I said make your own judgement on that," Kuhn said. "But having watched the replays for me it is clear, we should have had two penalties.

"And three of our players were given yellow cards, our opponents none. I think that answers your question about the referee."

Kuhn’s outburst is unlikely to go down well with Uefa, which has called on players and managers to make respect for referee’s decisions one of the themes of the tournament. The governing body has also expressed concern over the fact that one of the ‘penalty’ incidents was replayed repeatedly on a big screen in the stadium. — AFP