SAFA Head of Referees Abdul Ebrahim says match officials were unfairly criticized over the weekend, insisting coaches should blame their players for missing goal-scoring opportunities instead of the refs.
Ebrahim added some coaches are looking at referees for loopholes and majority of them don’t understand the rules of the game.
Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler was furious, debating the “poor” performance of the referee after his side lost to Royal AM in the Nedbank Cup last-32 at DHL Stadium on Sunday, saying referees make mistakes that could cost coaches their jobs.
Pretoria Callies coach Kwanene Kopo was also harsh on the standard of officiating after his side lost 2-1 to Golden Arrows in the same competition on Saturday, threatening to quit the game because referees have been bad.
The former SuperSport United DDC coach added Arrows’ free-kick that saw his side lose the game did not exist as his player’s hands were not made big.
AmaZulu coach Romain Folz was also not happy after his side beat Tornado FC 3-2 also in the same stage on Sunday, saying both goals scored by the lower division side did not exist, adding that his goalie Jody February was pushed for the first, while the second goal was offside – which the tv visuals seemed to confirm.
But Ebrahim has jumped to referees’ defence, saying coaches will always look at match officials for the blame game instead of looking at their own players.
“This is easy. If things don’t go your way, there is always somebody that has to be blamed,” Ebrahim told iDiski Times.
“Coaches will never blame their players for missing opportunities – they will always come to the referee and say, ‘we didn’t get penalties, we should have been awarded a penalty, that goal shouldn’t be allowed’.
“Once we have reviewed the footage, we can confirm that things have happened in the game and we can act accordingly. We will review all the matches.
“It is usually coaches, unfortunately, who don’t know the laws of the game, but when they lose, someone needs to be blamed.
“So they blame match officials, they will not blame their own players, they will not blame maybe that they made mistakes.
“So they always run to match officials and it is a norm in our game unfortunately. I’m not defending match officials, yes they do make mistakes, but we do deal with that. But sometimes they [coaches] need to be fair and look at the statistics.
“Referees make 20-30 decisions in the game, they make one that doesn’t go for your team, and you blame the referee that you lost the game.
“But they have five opportunities to score and they don’t score, do they say the players are poor? But they say referees are poor. So it really doesn’t make sense to me.”
