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| Sports |
| Referees excel at Nations Cup |
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by
Charles Nyirenda, 12 February 2004
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16:24:57
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On Saturday the grand final of the 2004 Nations Cup between hosts Tunisia and Morocco takes place in Tunis after 3 weeks of pulsating action. The two finalists made it to the pinnacle of the competition having discarded along the way accomplished soccer powers like Nigeria, South Africa and Senegal.
Obviously soccer pundits are busy placing odds on the two sides and making predictions about who will emerge victorious and succeed Cameroon as soccer kings of Africa.
However any discussion or analysis of this year’s Nations Cup edition will be incomplete without review the role of referees in the proceedings. Often in such competitions the whistlemen get accused of bias and they also face criticism for mishandling games thereby contributing directly to match outcomes.
But in the current contest referees seem to have played their rightful role. As a result, the competition should go down as one of the most successful ever.
As Fifa insist, referees are supposed to apply the rules of the game without fear or favour. In the competition it has been easy to notice that all referees have acted with fairness all the way in a fairly consistent manner.
Apparently due to a two-day workshop the referees underwent just before the contest started in Tunisia, the standard of officiation seemed to have been fine tuned and set to a certain level which has been maintained throughout the tournament. Among pertinent features of this quality refereeing are the following aspects:
The first is firmness. From the first day of the contest to date, every referee has been very strict and has not allowed players to dictate them on anything. In this respect they have not hesitated to use the cards if they deemed it necessary to do so.
Secondly, the application of common sense. In a number of matches tempers boiled over nearly threatening the continuation of the matches. Two good examples include matches between hosts Tunisia and DR Congo as well as Senegal respectively. In either match the referees restrained themselves from flashing red cards wantonly at players whose tempers had flared up.
Due to this matches resumed after scuffles and proceeded to the end without any further negative incidents.
Perhaps one of the most impressive bit about officiation has been the ignoring of manufactured penalty kick appeals following simulated fouls in the penalty area. On various occasions players of different teams tried to deceive referees by falling down in the penalty area upon slight contact with opponents in the hope of securing a penalty kick. To their dismay, it is yellow cards they got for simulation.
By and by players took notice and incidents of diving diminished considerably after players realised that cheating had become costly. Consequently by the semifinal stage only four penalty kicks were awarded for fouls committed in the box. This helped to reduce or minimise chances for disputed goals.
Finally, time keeping was quite superb. Lost minutes during the match were compensated for accordingly. For example in the Senegal vs Tunisia match 10 minutes of added time were provided. And in the game pitting Algeria against Morocco, a good 5 minutes were given, a thing that allowed the latter to equalise 3 minutes deep into injury time. In extra time they again scored twice to advance to the semifinals.
I hope our local referees have been closely watching their colleagues perform in Tunisia and in due course they too may apply similar skills here at home in order for the game to develop.
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