Chelsea's "worst ever" Referee Pre-selected to Officiate in World Cup Finals

With all the fuss surrounding this week's handball incident, football fans the world over will be horrified at the prospect that Martin Hansson, the referee who now infamously failed to see Thierry Henry's double handling of the ball in the box which led to Ireland's exit from the World Cup, is on FIFA's list of preselected referees to officiate in the Finals in South Africa.

As the row rumbles on, no-one has seemed to notice the inclusion of another name on that list who is no stranger to controversy for his decisions on the pitch.

Tom Henning Ovrebø, the referee of the 2009 Champions League semi final, who apparently had to be smuggled out of the United Kingdom in a wave of anger following that match is listed as another of these "preselected referees."

Chelsea fans in particular will be astonished by the news that the man who became infamous for his failure to award three clear penalties to their team against Barcelona in a performance described by Guus Hiddink as "the worst he has ever seen" will now be officiating on the Word stage.

But it seems Ovrebø has not entirely managed to avoid similar accusations on the way. On Oct. 10, 2009, Øvrebø refereed the World Cup qualifier between Greece and Latvia where he awarded a highly disputed penalty to Greece that helped the Greeks turn the game while trailing 2-1.

Latvian head coach Aleksandrs Starkovs mentioned that "there was clearly no foul and he didn't understand why Øvrebø awarded a penalty."

Let's hope this is going to be an interesting World Cup and not for all the wrong reasons. The full list of FIFA referees can be found here:

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/competition/92/29/78/candidaterefereesrapfwc2010%5f22oct2008.pdf