Specsavers take aim at the match referee in Wales v Turkey clash

Whoever is in charge of Specsavers social media we heartily applaud you.

The national retail chain of opticians are renowned for their humorous and quirky social media output – and they were at it again last night, as Wales fought out a controversial draw with Turkey.

The game, which Wales needed to win to have any hope of automatically qualifying for Euro 2024, was marred by a series of terrible refereeing decisions from the Slovenian match official, Matej Jug.

Wales had four penalty appeals waved away, with at least two of them stuck on, cast iron penalty shouts – both clear fouls in the box on Brennan Johnson. Meanwhile, Turkey were awarded a penalty, which everyone agreed was the softest, most ridiculous awarding of a penalty you will ever see.

Reacting to posts from the official Wales football X account (formerly Twitter) the optical giant first wrote: ‘We need a word’ and then at full-time, they reacted to another post with: ‘We’re launching a special deal for referees tomorrow.’

We need a word

— Specsavers (@Specsavers) November 21, 2023

We’re launching a special deal for referees tomorrow

— Specsavers (@Specsavers) November 21, 2023

The Football Association of Wales (FAW) account then got in on the act by sharing a post about training to become a referee.

Become a referee.

👉 https://t.co/hAj8kMHbZP pic.twitter.com/PPXx2GCx7j

— FA WALES (@FAWales) November 21, 2023

The Brennan Johnson penalty shouts…

A ddylai @Cymru wedi cael cic o'r smotyn… neu ddau? 🤔

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇹🇷 | #Euro2024 | https://t.co/zCKELa2cLC pic.twitter.com/ZmVh0yNUN4

— Sgorio ⚽️ (@sgorio) November 21, 2023

After the match, Welsh boss Robert Page was asked if Wales would have won with another referee. Page replied: “I have to be careful what I say. But I believe so, if I’m being completely honest.

“It’s a stonewall penalty, one of the most obvious penalties I’ve seen, against Brennan. The defender’s got the wrong side of him, he runs into him and takes him out.

“Then we’ve conceded the softest penalty you’ll ever concede. It’s so frustrating. The VAR check was over after 10 seconds.

“I can’t get my head around it, I can’t really understand how they’ve come to that decision.”