By Paul Nicholson
July 31 – CONCACAF has moved swiftly to set up a review of its refereeing department following the bitter and very public complaints of Panama and Costa Rica about the standard of officiating at the just completed Gold Cup.
Acting president Alfredo Hawit (pictured) has stepped up to personally oversee the review which will look a refereeing standards throughout the region as well as scrutiny of the process of making referee match appointments.
“The foundation of our game is fair play, and we must take the required steps to reinforce the importance of this principle,” Hawit said in a statement. “This review will allow the Confederation to take the next step towards improving refereeing across the region.”
The Gold Cup which ended last Sunday with a Mexico victory over Jamaica, was marred by angry Panama protests against the refereeing in their semi-final against Mexico and generally in the tournament, feeling that they were being cheated.
Panama, with Costa Rica who were eliminated by Mexico in the quarter finals, called for the resignation of the CONCACAF referees committee. Both nations suffered poor refereeing decisions that potentially (and in their minds certainly) altered the outcomes of their knockout matches. They took the highly unusual steps of filing official complaints.
After a meeting of the CONCACAF executive committee Hawit said that they had met with both the Referee Department leadership and referee Mark Geiger (who officiated in the semi-final between Mexico and Panama) and that he accepted that errors had been made.
“We at CONCACAF regret these circumstances but accept that such human errors are part of the game,” said Hawit.
The upshot is the review that is being undertaken. Hawit is the obvious choice to lead the process. A former player turned lawyer, he has 24 years of experience in referee administration.
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