Sports / Soccer
Zifa demotes 9 incompetent referees
31 Mar 2012 at 20:22hrs | Views
The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Referees Committee has demoted NINE senior referees from the ZIFA panel to ordinary class one referees.
The 9 referee have been deemed incompetent for PSL and will be confined to Division 1 matches.
Last season, local referees came under the spotlight when Zifa tasked its referees committee to deal decisively with mounting complaints of poor match officiating threatening to taint the title and relegation battles as the Premiership entered its home stretch.
There were complaints by a number of PSL teams against biased and poor refereeing as a number of clubs were either fighting for their top-flight survival or gun for the championship title.
The list of demoted referees includes Tichaona Masimba who handled the final league match between Dynamos and Kiglon last season.
The other 8 are;
*Phibion Ngorima
*Masimba Chihowa
*Onward Mukucha
*Ronald Mwanjira
*Berzel Makoni
*Joshua Tigere
*Emmanuel Dube
*Dennis Maposa
48 young and energetic referees have been certified to handle top-flight matches this season.
Last season ZIFA threatened draconian measures against Premier League referees who had threatened to boycott weekend matches to protest the hiring of foreign match officials for two weekend cup games after claims that local referees were being bribed.
ZIFA CEO Jonathan Mashingaidze warned that match officials that "their status as referees terminated."
The row followed ZIFA's extraordinary decision to hire South African and Zambian referees for the Mbada Diamonds Cup semi-final matches pitting Dynamos and FC Platinum at Barbourfields and Motor Action against Zimbabwe Saints at Sakubva.
ZIFA took the unprecedented step after yet unproven claims by Dynamos that FC Platinum was bribing referees in the league title race. Platinum strongly denied the charges, and have in turn accused ZIFA officials of throwing their lot with the Harare club in a bid to stop them winning the Premier League in their debut season.
Mashingaidze threatened: "ZIFA has the right to terminate their status as referees."
He insists that ZIFA took the decision to hire foreign referees as a "stop gap measure... to protect the sponsors of the tournament."
South African referee Victor Hlongwane made a howler at Barbourfields when he showed Platinum skipper Daniel Veremu a straight red card, then rescinded it shortly after and showed him yellow instead. He claimed that he thought Veremu had already been booked â€" but a dismissal for a second booking would have required him to show a yellow first, then follow it up with a red card.
In the end, he was accused of bottling it.
Hlongwane's cock-up has been used by local referees to illustrate that there are no flawless match officials.
And referees boss Bouyed says ZIFA has match assessors from its referees' committee who oversee matches up and down the country, and wonders why they have not taken action against suspect referees.
The 9 referee have been deemed incompetent for PSL and will be confined to Division 1 matches.
Last season, local referees came under the spotlight when Zifa tasked its referees committee to deal decisively with mounting complaints of poor match officiating threatening to taint the title and relegation battles as the Premiership entered its home stretch.
There were complaints by a number of PSL teams against biased and poor refereeing as a number of clubs were either fighting for their top-flight survival or gun for the championship title.
The list of demoted referees includes Tichaona Masimba who handled the final league match between Dynamos and Kiglon last season.
The other 8 are;
*Phibion Ngorima
*Masimba Chihowa
*Onward Mukucha
*Ronald Mwanjira
*Berzel Makoni
*Joshua Tigere
*Emmanuel Dube
*Dennis Maposa
48 young and energetic referees have been certified to handle top-flight matches this season.
Last season ZIFA threatened draconian measures against Premier League referees who had threatened to boycott weekend matches to protest the hiring of foreign match officials for two weekend cup games after claims that local referees were being bribed.
The row followed ZIFA's extraordinary decision to hire South African and Zambian referees for the Mbada Diamonds Cup semi-final matches pitting Dynamos and FC Platinum at Barbourfields and Motor Action against Zimbabwe Saints at Sakubva.
ZIFA took the unprecedented step after yet unproven claims by Dynamos that FC Platinum was bribing referees in the league title race. Platinum strongly denied the charges, and have in turn accused ZIFA officials of throwing their lot with the Harare club in a bid to stop them winning the Premier League in their debut season.
Mashingaidze threatened: "ZIFA has the right to terminate their status as referees."
He insists that ZIFA took the decision to hire foreign referees as a "stop gap measure... to protect the sponsors of the tournament."
South African referee Victor Hlongwane made a howler at Barbourfields when he showed Platinum skipper Daniel Veremu a straight red card, then rescinded it shortly after and showed him yellow instead. He claimed that he thought Veremu had already been booked â€" but a dismissal for a second booking would have required him to show a yellow first, then follow it up with a red card.
In the end, he was accused of bottling it.
Hlongwane's cock-up has been used by local referees to illustrate that there are no flawless match officials.
And referees boss Bouyed says ZIFA has match assessors from its referees' committee who oversee matches up and down the country, and wonders why they have not taken action against suspect referees.
Source - Byo24News
