The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Referees Committee has suspended three referees for allegedly influencing outcome of results, this was revealed by the committee’s Chairman Norman Matemera.
Matemera’s remarks comes after he was responding to a question on whether they (as the referees committee) are administering disciplinary action to match officials following concerns of poor officiating in the top flight league.
“Of course (we are punishing them for their misconduct), our referees make a lot of mistakes, for your own information we are in week five and we have played 45 matches in the league and of those we have three or four matches in which we felt referees influenced the outcome of the game.
“We have taken action and suspended those referees, to be specific they are three and I cannot reveal the names,” said the former COSAFA referee.
With five games into the new season, referees have been making headlines for the wrong reasons.
They have been making questionable decisions leaving some fans and club coaches believing they are incompetent to officiate in the league.
Last weekend, the FC Platinum versus CAPS United match was abandoned in the 88th minute after the linesman ruled out the latter’s goal for an offside.
Platinum were leading 1-0 when United thought they had equalised through Ralph Kawondera’s curler from outside the box.
Makepekepe’s coach Lloyd Chitembwe was left fuming after the match saying “this kind of officiating reduces our league to a mickey mouse league”.
On the other hand, the Dynamos versus Bulawayo Chiefs match last Sunday at Rufaro Stadium was believed to have been ‘badly’ officiated with another offside call denying the hosts a chance to take a 1-0 lead in the second half.
However, Matemera claimed that the referees who handled the Platinum and CAPS United match made a correct call.
“What happened this past weekend it’s very unfortunate that as referees we were crucified for doing good things.
“The decision made by referees (at Mandava Stadium) was correctly applied, it’s only the lack of understanding of the game from our stakeholders, supporters, players and coaches,” added Matemera.
As a way to minimise errors in match officiating, on Tuesday ZIFA announced it was holding a referees’ refresher course with 10 female and 25 male referees being participants.
Among the 35, 14 are on the FIFA panel.