Football: Referees' union Prospect accused Chelsea today of making a string of errors in their complaint against Mark Clattenburg and stepped up calls for the club to apologise.
Prospect national secretary Alan Leighton said the union did not intend to take legal action against Chelsea but the London club should apologise and offer compensation.
Clattenburg will return to action on Sunday after he was cleared by the FA of the accusation that he said "shut up you monkey" to Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel. The 37-year-old will be fourth official at Tottenham v West Ham.
Leighton said it was "beyond belief" that Chelsea had pursued the complaint based only on one player, Ramires, saying he had heard the abuse.
He said: "Chelsea have done a number of things wrong with this case. Firstly, they made the allegation and the nature of it public on the Sunday of the match.
"Secondly, on the Wednesday after their detailed investigation they decided to go ahead with a formal complaint based on one single witness statement.
"The FA statement makes it clear Chelsea didn't even know when the alleged comment was supposed to have been made during the game.
"Thirdly, they have not apologised to Mark, who has gone through hell. This is about an individual who has been badly wronged and there is not even recognition about what they have done to this referee and that is staggering."
He added: "There needs to be some form of deterrent to stop clubs going ahead with stuff like this which has no basis."
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