Last Monday, Savvas Kakos, president of Anorthosis football club, issued a statement strongly attacking the Cyprus Football Association (KOP). He stated that his team is the victim of an orchestrated attempt to deprive them of their chance of winning the league. He concluded, “Anorthosis will provide very shortly audiovisual proof that shows football results are not determined by how a team performs on the field as game officials appointments, penalties, red cards among others, are all made ‘on demand’.”
His outburst came after Anorthosis lost to lowly placed team Aris last weekend. Their main gripe was about the sending off of one of their star players and a penalty decision that went against them. In response, the President of KOP sent a video of the above two disputed decisions to the appropriate body of UEFA who deemed that on both occasions the decisions were correct!
However, not to be outdone, Kakos issued another statement claiming that the president of KOP acted arbitrarily without consulting them on all the grievances they had at the said game.
I have been watching football for over three decades and what strikes me is that referees seem to be making much more serious mistakes, and this applies not just to Cyprus referees but officials in most major leagues. Cast your mind back to last Sunday’s clash between Chelsea and Manchester United where Howard Webb awarded United two very dubious penalties but failed to award them another which was much more blatant. Then there is Chris Foy, who in a recent premiership game made at least five glaring mistakes, all favouring one team. Webb and Foy are considered two of the top officials in one of the most competitive leagues of Europe.
So where lies the problem, and why has refereeing ‘deteriorated’ over the years? There are a number of reasons for this.
Football rules have changed dramatically. They have become more complicated. Long gone are the days when a handball was a handball and an offside an offside. Now a ref has to decide whether it was intentional or whether the player was interfering with play or whether it was a career threatening tackle and so on. What one referee considers intentional the other may not. This results in inconsistencies. Take, for example, Kompany’s ‘career threatening’ tackle in the Manchester derby that earned him a red card. A few days later a much worse lunge by Liverpool’s Glen Johnson saw him get away without even a warning.
The game has also become much quicker, making it much more difficult for refs to keep up. Recently I watched the 1970 World Cup game between England and Brazil and it was as if it was played in slow motion. Even if a referee wanted to miss something it was very difficult. Even the ‘lightning fast’ Brazilians of the 70s played at what can best be described today as snail’s pace.
Unfortunately football is no longer just a game but a multi-million euro business with much at stake. And a lot of players will do anything to gain an advantage, whether it is diving at the slightest contact, feigning injury to get their opponent red-carded or using the ‘hand of God’ to score a goal. In a nutshell, players tend to cheat a lot more nowadays and this obviously makes the referee’s job a lot more difficult. In a split second a ref has to decide whether it was a dive or a mistimed tackle!
However, and going back to Cyprus football and refereeing, the level of accusations directed towards the officials is beyond all comprehension. No footballing weekend goes by without one team complaining about how a referee distorted the result. ‘We played poorly and that’s why we lost’ is rarely an option. This is more down to the Cyprus culture to always blame somebody else for one’s failure. The added problem in Cyprus is the prejudice that exists and no refereeing mistake is ever put down to human error. Referees are judged and stigmatised and criticised based on their political convictions, the place they were born or even who they work for. Had Chris Foy made the above-mentioned errors in a Cyprus game he would have been hung, drawn and quartered the same day.
Recently a friend told me the reason there is such an issue with referees in Cyprus is that wrong decisions usually ‘favour’ just the one team in a game, almost always the ‘big’ team. This may be true but this happens in most leagues. Can one say that the likes of Barcelona, Man Utd and AC Milan are not favoured (intentionally or not) when they play against the likes of Getafe, Wigan and Lecce?
It can’t be ruled out that some shady dealings may occur in Cyprus football so if Kakos has proof to back his accusations he should publicise it as soon as possible. The sooner he comes clean the better for Cyprus football. On the other hand, if he fails to do so he should apologise at the very least.
