Gawd only knows how much he will pocket from this adventure.!
Michael Oliver lands huge new role after Liverpool and Arne Slot red card controversy
Story by James Quinlan
Michael Oliver has been confirmed as one of the two referees from the Premier League that will officiate at the revamped FIFA Club World Cup this summer. That announcement, though, comes with one or two controversial moments involving Liverpool still fresh in the mind.
“We are coming from high standard performances delivered during the last FIFA tournaments. So the bar is higher,” chairman of FIFA’s referees committee, Pierluigi Collina, said alongside Monday’s statement confirming English officials Oliver and Anthony Taylor for the upcoming tournament. They are two of 117 individuals to be drafted from 41 member nations.
Incidentally, with one or two raised eyebrows from a Liverpool perspective, from the nine matches in which Arne Slot’s side have dropped points this season, Oliver has been in charge of three of them. They were the defeat to Nottingham Forest and draw to Manchester United, both at Anfield, plus the last-gasp away draw to Everton in the last ever Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.