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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Mark Walker

Bad Scotland omen as controversial referee appointed for Greece clash

Scotland have been handed a bad omen for the World Cup crunch with Greece after controversial Norwegian official Espen Eskas was appointed as ref.

He's already been in charge of dismal European nights for Celtic and Aberdeen this season.

Eskas was in charge of Celtic's disappointing goalless draw to Kairat Almaty at Parkhead and they were then eliminated from the Champions League after a penalty shootout defeat in Kazakhstan.

And in his very next match, Eskas flashed an extremely harsh second yellow card to Aberdeen defender Alexander Jensen in Romania against Steaua Bucharest for a handball that led to a penalty.


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The Dons crashed to a 3-0 Europa League play-off defeat after that and manager Jimmy Thelin said: "It's not an excuse but the penalty was a tough one and of course, it changes the dynamic of the game."

And Eskas was also in charge of Rangers' 2-0 Europa League defeat to Jose Mourinho's Fenerbahce last season, where he booked a staggering 11 players. Rangers did win the resulting penalty shootout though.

Eskas was also the man in the middle of Celtic's 3-1 Champions League defeat to RB Leipzig three years ago in Germany.

The referee was branded arrogant by Jose Mourinho after Fenerbahce's loss to Rangers last season.

He said: “The fourth official was a nice guy, he was not arrogant like the referee.

“The ref and the VAR, they decided that we should go to penalties because three penalties within 120 minutes.

“Then on the penalties we missed three and Rangers go through, congratulations to them.”

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