Howard Webb to Become Howard Webbski?

Hats off to Poland for excellent use of passports at Euro 2008. First Poland got themselves a brilliant Brazilian playmaker by turning Roger Guerreiro into Roger Guerreirowski, and were rewarded with a goal and several stepovers.

And now someone in Poland has gone one better and started a campaign to make Howard Webb a Polish citizen. Yep, that Howard Webb. The one who awarded Austria a controversial last minute penalty that effectively ended Poland’s Euro 2008 hopes.

“But why?” I hear you ask. Will Polish citizenship make Webb more sympathetic to Polish defenders? Maybe, but that’s not the idea.

The (genius) idea is that were Webb a Polish citizen, FIFA rules would prevent him from refereeing any future games involving Poland. “It would stop him from hurting us again,” one fan has been quoted as saying.

A little wacky, but it’s definitely a preferable approach to making death threats against 62 year old engineers who’ve never refereed a game of football in their life and just happen to share Howard Webb’s name.

The one big downside to this plan is that Howard Webb might decide to become a citizen of the world.

If he can become a Polish citizen with just one blow of his whistle, imagine how many more nationalities he could acquire before the end of the tournament?

Tonight Webb’s in charge of Greece vs Spain in Group D, so maybe we’ll find out which country Webb would prefer a passport from.