There are fewer teams in the Hyundai A-League than there were in the old National Soccer League so it would be quite reasonable to assume that the standard of refereeing would be higher as there are fewer referees required. How wrong that assumption is and was evidenced last night.
Glory played Sydney FC and it was one of the worst refereed games in living memory.
- One of the Glory’s players was booked for a professional foul, probably as the last defender taking down an opponent with the ball, when the Sydney player tripped over by himself. And the replay clearly showed that.
- There were a number of handballs that went unnoticed.
- The most obvious handling of the ball outside of the area by a goalkeeper that I’ve seen and neither the referee’s assistant (linesman), or more appropriately the referee’s partner in crime, or the referee did anything about it.
- The other referee’s assistant signalled a Sydney FC goal kick, changed his mind to a corner, and then indicated a goal kick. No. bloody. idea.
Commentary from one of the spectators standing in front of me was that the referee wanted to make a name for himself. Twit, idiot, bastard, cheat, bent, paid-off, crooked and no-hoper spring to mind. And they are just the clean names.
Glory went down 2-1 in front of 13157 spectators which wasn’t too bad considering that the weather was not the best and so my newly purchased raincoat came in very handy along with the fact that the game didn’t start until 7:40 pm which is too late for a lot of families to attend. Bloody TV rights to blame.
2 comments:
Refresh my memory. How many are on a soccer team? There must have been a few umpires.
Only a maximum of 11 players are allowed on the pitch at any one time.
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