The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
Highlanders coach, Erol Akbay has raised concern of the amount of additional time referees add on to games saying it does not sum up the stoppages that would have been made during matches.
Akbay said there seems to be a general trend by local referees to add less time than there would have been stoppages. He noted their game against Chapungu as the highlight saying he estimated fans were deprived of over 10 minutes of game time as their opponents wasted a lot of time during the game just to frustrate them.
“I don’t think there is really much of a problem with refereeing in the country but I think they miss it when it comes to injury time because most of the time they put less than what is warranted. That game against Chapungu we should have had more additional time because those players didn’t want to play as they wasted a lot of time. I think fans were deprived 10 minutes of football but you see the referee just indicating one minute,” said Akbay, adding he has also seen it happen in other matches involving other teams.
He said at one time there was a similar problem in Europe and when it was highlighted the referees body moved in to correct the situation and within six months teams stopped wasting time on the field of play as they knew the time would be added on.
Football commentator Charles Mabika said while he has not taken note of the trend he realised in most matches the added time revolved between two to four minutes irrespective of the stoppages. He said referees should punish teams that waste time and not let them get away with it.
“While it is not something that I have really studied the general trend locally is that the match official adds around two to four minutes unless there is a stark incident that is obvious to everyone and caused quite a stoppage. I think wasting time is a tactic we should not encourage and referees should punish teams that use it through adding the exact time that would have been lost.
“In Europe we see some matches getting seven, eight or nine minutes because of stoppages. If there is need referees should not hesitate to put in additional time and should not feel under pressure from anyone not to include it,” he said.
Mabika however, cautioned against the unnecessary criticisms of referees saying they are under too much scrutiny at the moment. He said like every other human they do make mistakes and they should be given benefit of the doubt as they cannot be expected to be on-point with their decisions all the time.
Referees trainer, Thabani Mnkanjto said added time is at the referee’s discretion and it would be difficult to contest it because the man in the middle is the one who will be stopping his watch during the match for stoppages.
“I have not noted that trend but remember the watch used is the referee’s so it is difficult to query it. However, it is an issue we are willing to look into and correct if need be,” he said.
