Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has addressed the concerns over officiating in the PSL with his experience since arriving in South Africa.
The 54-year-old joined the club after a stint in Tunisia with Esperance Sportive de Tunis but holds extensive experience in management.
Over the last decade, he’s coached Rio Ave, Nantes, Celta Vigo and AEK Athens in the top-flight leagues of Portugal, France, Spain and Greece.
However, he was notably incensed in recent games with questionable officiating, even going on to state they scored four goals in the 1-1 draw against Golden Arrows.
“I don’t like to personalise things with referees, I will never do that because I think the coach has more to lose than to win when he personalises the question, regarding [the Arrows game] you are the ones who should defend your football,” he said.
“You have a social impact and impact the ones who are responsible in football, it’s up to you to highlight what is good or bad – at the same time, the conditions of football, the level of coaches increase, or should increase, the level of players increase, so the level of referees should increase.
“In general, it’s not only in South Africa, it would be very important that VAR would be [implemented] in South Africa, it would help the referees, they are human beings so when they make a mistake in a game, it’s normal, it can happen.
“When it is too many mistakes in one match, it’s not comfortable, and it’s up to you [media] to look at the match and see what happens, because in a normal game we would have won, and it cost us two points that can be very important in a championship fight and morale of the team.”
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He went on to state that there must be cohesion and vision on developing football in South Africa holistically as it would thrive in a business sense, attract more investors, sponsors and create a better product for TV rights deals around the world, with the potential it has.
“In order to progress in South Africa… because one day I will go away, I don’t know if it will be one month or after several seasons, but I would like one day that my passage through SA football is remembered by trophies, but also a pathological approach.
“I want to leave that mark, I’m 54, I look for things in a different way than when I was 30 and I just wanted to win games, makes steps [in career] and impose myself, it’s not the way I see life now. These values we try to have, Sundowns has values that I need to respect, I can’t be provoking situations, I would be called to attention.
“I work hard on the mindset, I was so hard on my players to tell them just focus on football [not officiating], because in the end referees are human being and whatever match it is, maybe he had a bad day, they have the right to have a bad day, that’s why I say VAR is important because it helps a referee not have these days, they can be corrected, make less mistakes, to be better, it’s money well spent on VAR and on education.”
Sundowns next challenge is their Nedbank Cup quarter-final against Sekhukhune United has been postponed due to a double booking of the Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium on Saturday with the South Africa U17 FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifier.
