Johan Derksen believes Ruben van Bommel was rightly not sent off for his heavy collision with Aaron Bouwman during Ajax v PSV. In fact, Derksen says it was not even a foul. He said so on Groeten uit Grolloo.
In the podcast, Derksen said: "This week I was rather irritated and surprised by the hysterical stories that emerged about the collision between PSV player Van Bommel and Ajax's Bouwman. The whole of the Netherlands is saying it was a red card."
He added: "I even saw terms like 'attempted murder'. People were condemning it and everyone was outraged. But I thought it was not even a yellow card. It was a typical collision that occurs in a contact sport."
On Derksen's reading of the incident, both players had eyes only for the ball. "Both players were focused on the ball, deliberately went for the ball and met each other in midfield entirely by chance and could no longer avoid one another. Nobody was to blame. It was very unpleasant to watch, but you cannot blame Van Bommel for that at all, because he did not see that player. And Bouwman did not see him. That happens in football."
As Derksen sees it, Van Bommel only spotted Bouwman at the last moment. "And then he turned his shoulder into it to protect himself. And Bouwman did not see him coming at all."
For Derksen, the incident looked worse than it was. "It is very sad and it also looked very bad, but it was not a foul. It was a chance collision that occurs in every contact sport. That referee, Van der Eijk, made an excellent decision."
He also took aim at the referees' chief from Zeist. "Then I think it is a bit cheap that the referees' chief from Zeist had a big piece in De Telegraaf this morning saying that it was a red card and actually a major mistake by that referee. That is not the case. Only laymen come to that conclusion. If you have played football yourself, you understand how something like that can happen. In the whole situation I could not detect a single foul," Derksen concludes.