http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/sport/refs-banned-publicly-criticised-after-world-cup-qualifiers/3309382.html
Refs banned, publicly criticised after World Cup qualifiers
- *Posted* 22 Nov 2016 18:10
CAIRO: Two referees and one linesman have been suspended for three months
and publicly criticised by African soccer's governing body while another
has been warned, following their performances in recent World Cup
qualifiers.
Ghanaian Joseph Lamptey was suspended after the Confederation of African
Football (CAF) said he wrongly awarded South Africa a penalty in their 2-1
win over Senegal on Nov. 12.
Kenya's Davies Omweno was also barred for his performance in Tunisia's 1-0
win over Libya and his assistant Berhe O'Michael of Eritrea was banned
after CAF said he had denied Libya a valid goal by waving for offside.
CAF's public shaming of the match officials is highly unusual in
international soccer.
World governing body FIFA and its European counterpart UEFA, for example,
maintain policies of never commenting publicly on the performances of
referees and linesmen.
CAF, on the other hand, said that Lamptey was guilty of "poor performance"
in his match and "awarded a wrong penalty for handball despite the fact
that the ball never touched the hand of the player".
Lamptey previously served a six-month ban for wrongly awarding a goal
during a CAF Champions League semi-final in 2010.
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Omweno was also criticised for a "poor performance" which CAF said included
"wrong positioning and movement, incorrect identification of fouls and
failure to administer some disciplinary sanctions".
His assistant O'Michael was barred for "offside decisions including one
denying a valid goal by Libya".
The other linesman in the match, Rwanda's Theogene Ndagijimana, was given a
warning. CAF said he "missed multiple basic offside decisions which denied
teams promising attacks".
(Writing by Brian Homewood in Berne; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
- Reuters
Received on Tue Nov 22 2016 - 08:35:03 EST