An owl held up play for 6 minutes in Finland’s Euro qualifier against Belgium.It landed on the field and refused to budge.Harry Potter fans may see some significance in this.The ref called time out, the players – especially the Belgians – stood and goggled, the crowd roared in delight, and the owl responded to their cheers by performing a few leisurely low-level laps around the arena, with pauses in between when he perched on the crossbar at each end. Thirty thousand voices boomed out a new chant – “Huuhkaja! Huuhkaja!” – the name of the species in Finnish.
The Ref – Mike Riley – apparently did not consider using a red card to get rid of the bird.You will find more on the owl story on this page…
Video of the owl and its antics below…..