Former Premier Soccer League Footballer of the Season, Tefu Mashamaite says the standard of officiating hasn’t dropped, as it’s always been below par.
Mashamaite enjoyed a distinguished career in the league for Bidvest Wits, Kaizer Chiefs and SuperSport United, and also had a stint in Sweden with BK Hacken.
He will most fondly be remembered for his time at Amakhosi where he won a clean sweep of awards in the PSL in the 2014/15 season and lifted two league titles before his exit.
“It was the same when I was playing, there’s no standard that has dropped, the standard has always been low, we’ve been complaining about the refs, it was the same thing [when I was playing],” Mashamaite said on the Bettor Pod.
“They are very arrogant, I’m sorry to say this. I remember during my time, as a captain you approach the ref to try and get an explanation of his decision and he tells you; ‘you are not my captain’, I’m like what was the point of me wearing an armband if I can’t come and represent my team [on decisions].
“But I also feel the system protects them a lot, in England, you have review committees who take real action where yellow cards and red cards get rescinded, but here in South Africa, the referee makes a mistake and gets away with it.
“Or he gets suspended and then comes back a couple of weeks later, the system is to blame, referees have always been a thorny issue. I hope with the cries that are happening right now, something can be done, because it’s taking our football back.”
The former towering defender who has moved into football administration since retirement in 2018 denies the allegations that there’s something more sinister behind the poor officiating that has calls for Video Assistant Refereeing (VAR) louder this season.
“They are human at the end of the day, pressure does count, I don’t think there’s anything sinister like brown envelopes, we always got accused of it at Chiefs when we were winning, they also said Bobby [Motaung] was pushing brown envelopes,” he added.
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“But at the same time, you’re playing and seeing a referee is against us. But at the end of the day, they accusing Bobby of paying the ref, so I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the [conspiracies] of administrators paying them.”
