London - AFP
Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy said Monday he had been on the receiving end of some unwanted Twitter messages from Tottenham fans who confused him with referee Chris Foy. It was Foy who had angered many Spurs supporters during their high-flying side's 2-1 Premier League defeat by Stoke on Sunday when the visitors had an Emmanuel Adebayor goal wrongly disallowed for offside, two penalty appeals for handball turned down and Younes Kaboul harshly red-carded. àJohnnyJ-Smyth tweeted: "Robbed ! Chris hoy calls himself a premier league referee ! £mug." But Scottish cyclist Hoy, who won three gold medals in Beijing in 2008, responded: "Just for the record 1) I don't need glasses and 2) I do not lead a double life as an English premiere league ref. That's Chris Foy." He added: "Still getting some rather amusing grief from Spurs fans!" Hoy is not alone in being wrongly singled out by angry supporters. During the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in October an Auckland man who shares his name with referee Bryce Lawrence got calls from angry South Africa supporters who blamed the Kiwi official for the Springboks' quarter-final loss to Australia. And, more seriously, October also saw an unemployed man from Florence receive death threats after his namesake, Serie A referee Gianluca Rocchi, made a series of blunders during an Inter Milan-Napoli football clash.