PREMIER LEAGUE:Wild-eyed allegations post-Barca debacle is damaging to the game's long-term reputation, writes ANDREW FIFIELD.

AT SOME point this week, whenever their Geneva headquarters has run out of canapés, Uefa will get around to dispensing summary justice to Chelsea for the mind-boggling array of offences they committed in the wake of their Champions League exit to Barcelona.

As it happens, I belong to a group of people who would quite welcome the idea of Chelsea being subjected to weekly sanctions from any of the game's governing bodies, purely on the basis that they are Chelsea.

The events last Wednesday were a cavalcade of the classless: John Terry's Neanderthal lumbering after poor Tom Henning Ovrebo, who has surely done for Norwegian referees what Tofik Bakhramov did for Russian linesmen; or Michael Ballack, 180lbs of raw Wagnerian fury, howling like a mortally-wounded Siegfried.

When set against these, Didier Drogba spattering a Sky Sports camera lens with blue-flecked spittle actually appeared quite tame: after all, who amongst us has not sworn loudly at Sky at some point in our lives? Give the man a medal, I say.

No, things only really got out of hand when various players - and, allegedly, a few officials - began chucking around wild-eyed conspiracy theories.

This, of course, is a classic Chelsea trick. Perhaps the attitude filters down from Roman Abramovich who, as a cherry-cheeked young oligarch, could scarcely have been able to cross the road without having to check over his shoulder for a KGB agent; maybe it is a legacy from Jose Mourinho, who went from Brian Clough to Howard Hughes in three short seasons at Stamford Bridge.

Either way, the habit seems contagious and Chelsea's players duly responded by hinting darkly that the whole fiasco was being remote-controlled by a villainous, cat-stroking Michel Platini from his Swiss bolt-hole.

Such nonsense might have been expected from someone like Drogba, but it was more disheartening to see Guus Hiddink refusing to wholeheartedly condemn the half-cocked conspiracy theorists.

For the most part, Chelsea's interim manager has cut a hugely impressive figure during his fleeting tenure at Stamford Bridge: articulate, intelligent and apparently disdainful of that very Premier League habit of seeking to dump blame on whichever poor sap happens to be closest at hand rather than assuming responsibility for your own mistakes.

That was, until Wednesday, when he showed that even interim managers can become blinded by the tired old petty prejudices and blinkered thinking that afflicts so many of their peers. His slippery performance two days later at his weekly press briefing - where his condemnations of Chelsea's behaviour were the equivalent of beating his players with a giant feather-duster - was also faintly demoralising.

Chelsea's officials, not exactly renowned for their self-awareness, appear to have gravely underestimated the severity of the accusations that were being slung around week . . .

First, hinting that Barca had been effectively piggy-backed into the final by Ovrebo and Platini came dangerously close to legitimising the behaviour of those knuckle-dragging cretins who had probably set up a Facebook group calling for Ovrebo's whistle to be inserted in a sensitive place before even setting foot outside the stadium.

It is all very well for Chelsea to issue gravely-worded statements insisting it "condemns any form of threat against players, officials or supporters" but when Ballack and, according to witnesses in the players' tunnel, several other senior Chelsea players have come dangerously close to occasioning a spot of grievous bodily harm on Ovrebo, the sense of righteous outrage loses some of its sting.

More serious, in the long-term, is the damage done to the game's reputation. Calling a referee an imbecile or Uefa incompetent is one thing: it is quite another to suggest that the system is bent, even if, as Chelsea have done, you then spend the next four days furiously backtracking and scattering retractions like confetti.

It is too late. As soon as aspersions have been cast on football's integrity, the fundamental bond of trust that exists between the sport and managers, players and supporters - its most valuable stakeholders - is smashed.

History suggests it is desperately difficult to reforge. Arsene Wenger, famously, vowed never to return to French football after the Bernard Tapie scandal, which saw Marseille buy up titles against the likes of Wenger's Monaco, while many devotees will never see Serie A in the same sunny light after the 2006 Calciopoli scandal.

Uefa, if they are serious about their role of guardians of the game in Europe, should make an example of Chelsea when they announce their sanctions this week.

Financial penalties could be one avenue of redress, with Roman Abramovich reportedly down to his last €11 billion. Suspensions are another. But if Platini and co really want to make Chelsea suffer, the answer is obvious: appoint Ovrebo to their Champions League games from now until the day he retires.