Someone in Strasbourg has a fine sense of timing. The European Court of Human Rights chose this week to step into the global furore surrounding the officiating of association football – by ruling that negative comments about the man (or indeed woman) in black may be protected as free speech.
The court was ruling on decisions by the Portuguese courts about a match official identified as ‘BP’. FC Porto went in studs up with a newsletter comment stating that BP ‘seem[ed] to have an issue with impartiality’. Obiter agrees that the comment would tend to disparage the ref in their business, trade or profession – not to mention open them up to hatred, ridicule or contempt – and thus would potentially be defamatory in England and Wales. But we have seen and heard far worse on the terraces.
Nonetheless, the disciplinary council of the Portuguese Football Federation fined Porto €15,300 for ‘offending the honour and reputation of sporting bodies and their members’.
The case found its way to Strasbourg, where the club argued that the fine breached its Article 10 right to freedom of expression. The court agreed, finding disparaging comments were ‘common in the context of football competitions’. Someone has clearly been watching the telly.
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