The Wikipedia page dedicated to Irish referee Alain Rolland was sabotaged by angry rugby supporters following his all too central role in Saturday’s Rugby World Cup semi-final between Wales and France.
Rolland grabbed all the headlines by sending off Wales captain Sam Warburton early in the game.
The former Ireland international scrum-half – who reffed the World Cup final between South Africa and England four years ago – immediately became Public Enemy No 1 in Wales.
And that enmity became apparent on Wikipedia, where users edited his page as follows:
– his name was changed to read “Alain Colm Pierre Bit of a Knob Rolland”
– he was described as “a fool who erroneously sent off Sam Warburton”,
– and his strong French links gave rise to “Rolland, whose father is French speaks fluent French making him an awful neutral referee for matches involving English speaking teams and France.”
And Wikipedia wasn’t the only place at which web users took aim at Rolland today – here’s a broad selection of the talk on Twitter, where the verdict ranged from absolute support to absolute ridicule.
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