By S. Siapha Mulbah
The 2023/2024 National County Sports Meet is being overwhelmed by officiating missteps and decisions that continue to ruin the quality and expectation of the game.
Errors are becoming the regular routine of match officials, especially central referees who control the whistle and manage the rules of the game for full implementation.
Two of the four quarterfinal matches hosted at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in the City of Paynesville recently, were brought under high spotlight of criticism, and contributed to severe disorderly conduct exhibited by fans in frustration and disappointment over reports of being cheated.
The awarding of a penalty and cancelation of a goal by two different referees sparked heavy contentions because both decisions contributed to the fulltime results of the matches under review favoring two counties considered for pulling out the numbers especially in terms of fans and population of the supporters.
On Sunday, April 27, 2024, Lofa County, according to series of reports gathered from fans and county stakeholders, benefited from a blunder by central referee, George Momo, in their fixture against Bomi County.
Referee Momo awarded a penalty to the 2022/2023 defeated finalists from Wologizi when the goal keeper of the only team from the western region, Bomi County, got across James Tarpeh to obstruct a possible goal-scoring opportunity.
Following the decision of the officiator of the match, Bomi County Sports Association formally complained to the office of the Minister of Youth and Sports for what they called “very poor officiating” on the part of the referee, and urged that there be a speedy and impartial investigation of central referee Momo.
They also prayed that the outcome of the investigation considers the scheduling of a rematch in their fixture against Lofa County, in order to have a transparent fair-play at the County Meet because the evidence of video and photographs shows controversy.
The next day, Monday, April 29, 2024, the extension of the match involving Nimba and Grand Gedeh Counties that could not be completed on Saturday, April 27, due to poor visibility at the county’s national stadium, was staged for 30 minutes. This was an extra time situation because the match initially ended 2-2.
Again, Josephus Torjilar, another central referee, made the greatest blunder by canceling a dying-minute goal scored by Grand Gedeh against the defending champions of the National County Sports Meet.
Minutes to the end of the match, a foul was called for few meters away from the penalty area and the freekick was crossed and a header was delivered straightly in the roof of the net with a celebration from Grand Gedians.
There was no protestation from players of Nimba and the goal was confirmed by the assistant referee who dropped his flag and moved to the midway line, intending to have a kickoff by Nimba.
The shock became clear when the central referee told the players that the sound of his whistle was for a foul committed against a defender of Nimba County.
This other decision led to violent retaliation after the match when the defending champions won their ticket to the semifinal after winning a post-match penalty session on a 4-2 score line.
Prominent citizens of Nimba, including the former president of the Liberia Football Association, now Representative, Musa Bility, described the goal cancelation as a football bribery to the people of Grand Gedeh.
In social media post, he asserted that the acceptance of the goal which was fairly scored by Grand Gedeh against his county was not a total assurance that Nimba would have lost the match because there was a little time and energy for redemption.
“This is just wrong and the referee must be punished. We did not need this help from him as Nimba.
The goal they scored was perfect and football does not deserve this,” he wrote on Facebook, terming the victory as an undeserved one.
