Former referee Graham Poll has told Setanta Sports that Didier Drogba could miss all of next season’s Champions League group phase as a result of his post-match antics against Barcelona.
Drogba came in for a whole heap of condemnation for the manner in which he confronted referee Tom Henning Ovrebo over what Chelsea perceived to be as many as four penalties that should have been awarded.
Drogba’s rant after the final whistle followed an equally vociferous reaction from Michael Ballack following the last of his side’s failed appeals.
Uefa have since promised to investigate and Poll is certain that both Drogba and Ballack can expect to be subjected to stringent punishment when football’s European governing body dishes out its decision.
“I think there will probably be fairly hefty match bans, maybe eight to ten for Drogba and five or six for Ballack,” he told Setanta Sports’ Football Matters.
“They will probably get halved on appeal – that’s kind of the way Uefa do things...they always know there’s an appeal coming so they go heavy and then reduce it down.
“I think they’ll probably look for Drogba to have six matches because then he misses all the group stage games.
“That seems a good punishment for him but whether he’ll be at Chelsea for those games is another matter.”