Zico and Akwana call on caretaker committee to check on dwindling officiating standards

KCB head coach Zedekiah ‘Zico’ Otieno and his Mathare United counterpart Ezekiel Akwana have become the latest managers in the top flight to fire attacking salvos at the dwindling standards of officiating in the Football Kenya Federation Premier League.

Since the takeover of the government appointed Football Kenya Federation Caretaker Committee, growing concerns have continued to trickle in as the officials who have been tasked with manning games in the post FKF campaign have been accused of poor decision making in league games.

For example, one of the most glaring misjudgments came in a recent past clash pitting Kakamega Homeboyz and Gor Mahia where the referee controversially pointed to the penalty spot on a foul that appeared to have been committed outside the box.

After KCB’s clash with Mathare on Tuesday where the Bankers narrowly won 1-0, Zico and Akwana bemoaned the general officiating in the league as they

“We won the game but still the level of officiating has been very poor. That has not been the case in this match alone but generally for the new officials who have come in. Decisions are being made without any consistency and that is a cause for worry,” Zico remarked.

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On the other hand, Akwana blamed his team’s loss to the kind of officiating witnessed in the match as he stated that the referee denied them a clear penalty when John Mwangi had been fouled in the area only for the referee to point to a free kick outside the box.

“We deserved even a point in the game but the referee cost us the game. Some of the decisions made were completely unacceptable and I blame it on them. They really need to do more in terms of officiating,” Akwana lamented.

On the back of those complaints, the caretaker committee moved in swiftly to state that they will be evaluating the performances of the referees to ensure that officiating standards are upheld.

"We are doing an analysis for the referees for the first time. There is a package that one team is being officiated by the referee for four, five games or the same package you find that the centre referee will be the lines man but he is the same one so we are doing an analysis on that. We will make sure that each and every referee is clean and we will release a report on referees," noted the committee in a presser held on Wednesday.

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