Arda Turan celebrates birthday with cake following ref incident

Atletico Madrid midfielder Arda Turan celebrated his 28th birthday last night and was presented with a “boot cake” by family and friends.

The celebratory dessert was decorated in the club’s colors and was an obvious reference to the controversial incident from Wednesday night’s Copa del Rey quarter-final second leg against Barcelona when the Turkish player hurled his boot at a linesman. Turan received a yellow card from match referee Jesus Gil Manzano, although many felt the Atletico Madrid midfielder was lucky to remain on the pitch.

The Turkey international escaped later punishment after the RFEF’s Competitions Committee decided not to punish him further.

During the second half of Atletico Madrid’s 3-2 defeat to Barcelona, Turan inexplicably picked up his boot and fired it over the head of the linesman since the player felt the official had missed a Barcelona foul.

It is understood that referee Manzano referred to the incident in his match report and no other complaints were received by the committee, so Turan escaped without further sanction.

“On 48 minutes, the player, Arda Turan (10) was booked for the following motive: throwing his boot off the field of play in disagreement,” the match official wrote. Since the referee noted the incident and handled it at the moment, Turan escaped further punishment.

Should Barcelona or the Referring Technical Committee have issued a complaint, Turan could have been handed a lengthy ban.

That said, the Turkish midfielder will be available for Atletico’s next match against Eibar on Saturday, as well as the Madrid derby on February 7th.