Mark Clattenburg was caught up in a storm last night after the referee was accused of aiming a racist insult at Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel during their 3-2 home defeat by Manchester United.
Chelsea made a complaint to the Premier League after Mikel stormed into the referee’s room to demand an apology after claiming Clattenburg made a racist slur when he booked the midfielder in the 76th minute.
One of Chelsea’s Spanish stars is also involved after players claim they heard Clattenburg refer to him as ‘a Spanish t**t’.
Chelsea made the official complaint at 7.45pm last night, but Clattenburg had already been confronted by then.
Chief executive Ron Gourlay, along with Mikel and manager Roberto Di Matteo, demanded an apology from Clattenburg during stormy scenes in the referee’s room.
Clattenburg refused and Chelsea decided to take the incredible action of launching an immediate complaint to the Premier League over his choice of language.
According to sources close to the players, they are willing to make statements to the FA’s disciplinary committee this week.
A club spokesman said: ‘We have lodged a complaint to the Premier League match delegate with regards to inappropriate language used by the referee and directed at two of our players in two separate incidents in today’s match. The match delegate will pass the complaint to the Football Association. We will make no further comment at this time.’
Incredibly, the incident occurred on the day Chelsea threw their full support behind the Kick Racism Out of Football campaign. Players from both Chelsea and United — with the notable exception of United’s Ashley Young — wore One Game One Community T-shirts in the pre-match warm-up.
John Terry, serving a four-match ban for racially insulting Anton Ferdinand last October, wore a Kick It Out badge on his tracksuit as he watched the game from the sidelines.
Rio Ferdinand, fined £45,000 for his infamous ‘choc ice’ tweet, also ended his feud with Ashley Cole when he shook hands with him before the game.
But all that was forgotten last night amid amazing and dramatic scenes nearly two hours after the final whistle at Stamford Bridge.
Home players heard the alleged comment and will back up Mikel’s story.
The matter is now in the hands of the FA and Premier League officials, who will ask Sky TV for footage from the 20 separate camera angles used for live matches.
Although not all are recorded, they should help confirm whether Clattenburg made an inappropriate or racially aggravated comment.
Premier League refs also wear microphones, which suggests that evidence by Michael McDonough and Simon Long, who ran the line, or fourth official Michael Jones could be crucial.
There was no comment by Clattenburg last night at time of going to press despite repeated attempts by Sportsmail. – Daily Mail