adminand could continue to appoint foreign match officials until his association clears the rot within local football.
Gumede, speaking after the Mbada Diamonds Cup semi-final match between Dynamos and FC Platinum, said Zifa were happy with the manner in which the South African referees had handled the game.
“Everyone saw good refereeing today although the environment was very tense. We saw top class officiating and I am glad that we did the right thing.
“The visitors did well and I never heard any single complaint from the players, the officials, and spectators. I just heard people saying ‘well done’,” Gumede said.
South African officials Victor Hlungwane in the centre and assistants Sandile Dilikane and Leon Mnqibisi handled the match at Barbourfields while Zambian referees also took charge of the other semi-final between Motor Action and Zimabbawe Saints.
‘The exercise is not an indication that our referees are not competent. The problem is the allegations of graft. We now want to get rid of the rotten apples.
“It is not everybody who is corrupt. If there is need we will still get the foreign referees especially for the explosive match next week at Mandava pitting Dynamos and FC Platinum.
“The only problem is if we call the referees we need to fly them in and they also have inflated rates and we have no money. If we get a sponsor we will call them until such a time we identify the rot.
“At the moment we are still in the process of investigating and when we are done it will be business as usual”.
The South Africans had a good game but they however showed fans that referees are human too who can err when Hlungwani flashed a red card in the face of Daniel Veremu after the FC Platinum and national team defender had lunged at Martin Vengesayi but then reversed his decision.
It appeared that Hlungwani thought that he had earlier cautioned Veremu but noticed that the lunge was the defender’s first yellow card offence.
Some fans have, however, questioned the logic of importing the referees for local tournaments and have asked Zifa to improve the standards of our referees instead.
With only three games to go to the end of the season the decision by Zifa to bring officials from South Africa has seen the local officials threatening to boycott the three remaining matches in the Premiership as they claim the decision was rushed and an international embarrassment for them.
The Zimbabwe Soccer Referees secretary general Batsirayi Muchenje feels the way to go was investigating.
“ZIFA should have investigated and suspended the concerned referees. This is a blanket ban on our local referees. They have admitted that all referees are corrupt by calling foreign referees and yet we are just looking at two or three games where 6 or 8 officials took part out of the 70 referees”
“The issue here could be that they could have been misinterpretation of the 17 laws of the game by the club officials, fans and officials or it was incompetence on the part of the referees. ZIFA should have just investigated and suspended those referees if found guilty than having a blanket ban. What will Caf say? They will not have confidence in us if we fail to handle a local tournament in our country how then can we handle Caf tournaments? The other 60 referees should be given a chance. SAFA (South Africa Football Association) investigates before taking action and if ZIFA had the guts why didn’t they follow the same route”
“They have given ammunition to clubs fighting relegation or even at the bottom of the log? What can stop other clubs from complaining? They got referees from South Africa but that country has suspended quite a number of them for poor performance. So we are not so sure what Zifa are trying to do,” Muchenje said.
Safa suspended five referees and two match commissioners last week.
Online Reporter