Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has continued his criticism of referees following a series of questionable officiating in recent matches.
Cardoso is among coaches who have not been impressed by the level of officiating in the PSL and was left furious after his team’s 1-1 draw with Golden Arrows last week, when he felt his team should have been given two goals, while the one scored by the opponents was offside.
The Portuguese tactician says his criticism is not targeted at any match referee in particular but is aimed at improving the level of officiating in South African football as a whole.
Cardoso wants refereeing mistakes highlighted
“I don’t like to personalise things with referees, I will never do that because I think the coach has more to lose than to win when he personalises the question, regarding [the Arrows game] you are the ones who should defend your football,” Cardoso told journalists as per iDiskti Times.
“You have a social impact and impact the ones who are responsible in football, it’s up to you to highlight what is good or bad – at the same time, the conditions of football, the level of coaches increase, or should increase, the level of players increase, so the level of referees should increase.”
The Sundowns coach has also emphasized the need for South African to quickly implement Video Assistant Referee (VAR) as he feels it will help eliminated the mistakes being witnessed.
What solution is Sundowns coach providing?
“In general, it’s not only in South Africa, it would be very important that VAR would be [implemented] in South Africa, it would help the referees, they are human beings so when they make a mistake in a game, it’s normal, it can happen,” he added.
“When it is too many mistakes in one match, it’s not comfortable, and it’s up to you [media] to look at the match and see what happens, because in a normal game we would have won, and it cost us two points that can be very important in a championship fight and morale of the team.”
Sundowns face AmaZulu in the PSL at the Lucas Moripe Stadium on Tuesday and Cardoso will be hoping that it is an incident-free encounter when it comes to officiating.
