The big news of the week on the refereeing front was the sudden retirement of Catalan based referee Antonio Llonch Andreu. Llonch was in charge for the game between Sevilla and Valladolid, where the Gallardo celebration hit the headlines, and the disciplinary action initiated by the federation against his will could have been the incident which triggered off his decision. For a long time though he has been increasingly unhappy about the way the game is run, and once he had made his announcement he had harsh words for several groups, not least of which the three non-footballing lawyers who made up the disciplinary committee. He also complained that referees were given too little support from all sides in what is a difficult labour, especially when some presidents and managers were able to criticise their work without anyone doing anything to stop them, and in general accused the authorities of "de-humanizing" football.

The truth is that referees did little wrong this week. True there were the usual over-zealous performances, with Pérez Burrull dishing out twelve yellows and two reds in the game between Betis and Tenerife, and Megia Dávila leaving Levante and Villarreal with ten men each in their cup tie. Megia also set off a near riot at Málaga at the weekend when he sent off local favourite Darío Silva, and Ansuategui Roca was not the most popular man in Bilbao as he turned down four fairly valid penalty claims by the home side in the first half alone. But given Llonch's complaints let's not mention that this week eh? Long live the men in black. Without them, who would entertain the crowds every week? (03.12.01)