Red cards for refs

South African football's chief of referees said he has acted against poor officials because they were getting the headlines instead of the players.

Alpha Mcunu, who is chairman of the referees committee on the South African Football Association, suspended several referees who have made bad calls in high-profile matches this season.

He said it had taken measures to limit "bad publicity" for the game created by bungling refs.

Bad refereeing, with legitimate goals being disallowed, and a controversial sending-off of Benni McCarthy have marred the start of the season and contributed to Safa's concern.

McCarthy was red-carded in Orlando Pirates' 2-1 defeat by Maritzburg United at the Harry Gwala stadium in August.

Lebohang Daniels, who was responsible for disallowing an apparently legitimate goal in a 1-1 draw between Free State Stars and Supersport United in August, received the most severe punishment.

Daniels, one of his assistant referees and the fourth official in that match have been suspended for three weeks without pay.

Referees Robert Smith and Harry Lekitlane were suspended from adjudicating Premier League games for two weeks, but are able to ref National First Division matches. Robert Sithole got off with a warning.

"There were a lot of questions being asked about the state of refereeing in the Premier Soccer League this season and we had to act," said Mcunu.

"We didn't want bad publicity because referees were dominating headlines instead of the games getting more coverage. The findings from our investigation will also help our referees find their footing."

Contributing to the poor refereeing in the PSL has been the retirement of top referees Abdul Ibrahim, Faick Daniels and Steven Moshotle, leaving the referees' body short of quality from the start of the season.

To make matters worse, award-winning officials Jerome Damon and Daniel Bennett failed fitness tests and were not available for the new campaign.

"Bennett is back and Damon will have another chance to get back into the pool of referees in December. If he passes, then he will start officiating league matches in February," said Mcunu.

"CAF [Confederation of African Football] has also promoted our referees before, which suggests they aren't all that bad. Our findings were a way to ensure we have an improved second part of the season after a terrible start."

Mcunu said the review committee would keep an eye out for more blunders this season. He said a season-long suspension would be the worst sentence for inept officials.

Mcunu said some referees would be offered "psychological assessments" to evaluate their mental state.

"We take into consideration that some of them rely on the money from refereeing as their livelihood, so, while we reprimand them for some mistakes, we don't just want to make them scapegoats," he said.

Premier League coaches have also complained about allegedly poor refereeing. Following his side's 1-0 defeat by Kaizer Chiefs at the weekend, Platinum Stars coach Owen da Gama said his club was a victim of "bad refereeing".