Sri Lankan whistle prevents Oman from winning over Qatar
The Omani Soccer Federation lodged an official protest yesterday with the International and Asian Soccer Federations against the Sri Lankan referee, Krishanthi Perera, due to bad refereeing performance in the match between the Omani and Qatari teams, the day before yesterday in the joint qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Asian Nations Cup finals. The soccer referee should be removed from the list of international referees.
The Qatari team qualified for the 2023 Asian Nations Cup, to be held in China, after defeating its Omani counterpart 1-0 in the seventh round of Group E matches in the qualifiers.
Hassan Al Haidous scored the game’s only goal in the 40th minute, to raise the Qatari team’s tally to 22 points at the top of the standings, while Oman’s tally froze at 12 points in second place.
The fifth group includes Qatar, Oman, India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and its competitors in Qatar will be organized by a grouping system to avoid travel restrictions imposed due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The Omani Federation said, “The referee was unsuccessful in managing the match, so he neglected to achieve the desired justice on the field, and made refereeing mistakes that negatively affected the conduct and outcome of the important meeting”.
“The protest included demands to remove the referee from the list of international referees, to take different procedures and mechanisms in assigning such matches to referees in accordance with the competency criterion, and to review the formation of committees to assign referees to the AFC,” he said. “The Omani Football Federation will follow the protest closely so that the efforts of its players and their legitimate ambitions do not fall into pieces”.
“The Omani Federation praises the performance and high spirit of its players during the match, and stresses that its hopes of qualifying for advanced stages of these qualifiers are still remaining, and that al-Ahmar is capable of winning the remaining matches and moving forward to satisfy the aspirations of its fans,” he said.
After the result gave Qatar (22 points) the lead of the group of 8 matches and a chance to qualify to the 2023 Asian Nations Cup finals in China, the Omani team was frozen in second place with 12 points from 6 matches and was required to defeat Afghanistan and Bangladesh in the next two rounds to ensure qualification to the third and final stage of the World Cup qualifiers.
The most prominent referee mistakes in the match
Ignoring Oman’s penalty kick in the 88th minute after participating with Khaled Al-Hajri
Oman disallowed a goal for offside in the 89th minute
At the end of the first half, he awarded an incorrect penalty kick in favor of Qatar.
