Under-19 Four-Nation Tournament:DUBLIN REFEREE Richie Winters was embroiled in the centre of controversy as the entire Turkey team walked off the pitch in protest for half an hour just a minute before the interval in yesterday's Under-19 Four Nations tournament game against the Netherlands at Bray's Carlisle Grounds.

The Turks took exception to Winters’ handling of the game, especially a controversial penalty award which led to PSV Eindhoven’s Imad Najah’s goal on 33 minutes. That meant a yellow card for the Turkish coach Ogun Temizkanoblu following his protest to the fourth official.

And his assistant Soner Tollingug was soon to follow for losing his composure on the bench when kicking water bottles. But the real crisis point came in the first seconds of added time in the first half.

Volkan Dikmen, who had scored Turkey’s equaliser with a header on 38 minutes, was about to be yellow-carded for a foul just before the interval and the Turks were instructed by their remaining coaching staff to walk off to the dressing rooms in protest.

The Dutch, the referee and his assistants eventually sheepishly took the same decision even though the half-time whistle had never been blown.

In such situations the match should have been abandoned and there are Fifa precedents that the Netherlands should have been awarded an automatic 3-0 victory.

But to the amazement of the 80 or so spectators present, Winters had an Irish solution to a Turkish problem and after half an hour’s negotiations, the two teams were back on the field.

Winters’ first act was to restart play from where it had ended and belatedly booked Dikmen.

The one minute of added time was played out and the teams immediately turned round for the second half.

The Netherlands eventually won 3-1 with second-half goals from Ricky van Haaren and Geoffrey Castillion and with Ireland losing 1-0 to Portugal at Tallaght, the Dutch went on to take the tournament.