The international news of the week on the disciplinary front was the four match bans handed out by the Italian football federation to two top referees who made errors in their respective league games. Heaven help us if that rule was ever introduced in Spain, as pretty soon there wouldn't be anyone left to run the matches.

Three for example would be in the sin bin right now after this weekend's games, starting with Téllez Sánchez who awarded that controversial last minute penalty to Betis striker Dani after he backed in to Real Sociedad's Jauregi. The defender earned himself a second yellow card for protesting and Fernando slotted home the penalty kick for a victory which could have a big effect on the league table for both clubs come the end of the season. Real president José Luis Astiazarán is already talking about a "black hand" helping his closest rivals in recent weeks, and the disciplinary committee have opened an investigation into even stronger comments made by Karpin on the subject.

Meanwhile, Astiazarán's closest rivals Real Madrid were having refereeing problems themselves. Trailing by a single goal at Osasuna, substitute Morientes saw his header cleared from behind the line twice by Gancedo (the first attempt hit the bar and bounced back), and the players surrounded Medina Cantalejo claiming a goal. The referee was having none of it and waved play on, although looking at television pictures afterwards it seemed more of a goal than the one awarded the week before to Sevilla's Fredi against Mono Burgos by Carmona Méndez.

And talking of Fredi, he was one of a record four Sevilla employees to be shown a red card by Turienzo Alvarez in their match at Bilbao this week. As explained in the villains section, two were members of the coaching staff for arguing with the public, and Fredi and David got their marching orders for fouls on Javi González. The disciplinary committee were not too impressed with all the decisions though, and although they didn't give any explanations as to why, they cancelled the red card shown to the Sevilla left winger.

Turienzo's report did make interesting reading though, and he also included a comment that the Athletic players came out wearing T-shirts reading "Gurpegui Zurekin Gaude". Presumably suspecting a possible Basque terrorist message, he asked the local delegate what it meant. The man told him it read "Gurpegui, we are with you". But just in case he was lying, the referee put the whole incident in his report anyway. (20.02.03)