The Football Kenya Federation Premier League (FKFPL) has witnessed a litany of referee complaints but the Caretaker Committee League and Competitions sub-Committee Chairman Ali Amour has jumped to defend the match officials.A number of coaches including AFC Leopards’ Patrick Aussems, Tusker’s Robert Matano, and David Ouma from Sofapaka, just to mention a few, have called out poor officiating on a number of occasions with video evidence also displaying the rot from referees.THREADNever in my few years of writing have I witnessed a game with so much officiating drama as @BidcoUnited vs @NrbCityStars. The game was smooth up until early on in the second half when referee Caroline Wanjala pointed to the spot for reasons still best known to her. pic.twitter.com/KBpXDbEoen— Imran Otieno (@Imran_Otieno) March 7, 2022 Amour called for the digitization of referees to ensure they can be easily monitored with the match officials prone to error due to their human nature.“You sometimes hear people blaming the referee, but they blame them using words they don’t have the right technology. Referees are human beings, they sometimes make mistakes. There are times also fans complain because a referee has given a penalty in the 90th minute which brings emotions from fans and club owners.The referees have sometimes been pushed and the most important thing that can prevent them from being manipulated is digitization. This applies to players so that we know the distance covered and when the referee get such a gadget we can know from where he made the call,” Amour told KTN News.The latest refereeing debacle was witnessed in the Tusker and Gor Mahia encounter in Thika when the referee chalked off the Brewers goal in added time which left head coach Matano incensed.Amour admitted that the Caretaker Committee will not conduct the coming federation elections and also revealed that referees’ payment has already commenced after the whistleblowers threatened to down their tools.Gor vs Tusker was abandoned in the final minutes of the game after centre referee Anthony Ogwayo flip flopped in his decision making. The FIFA referee had ratified a goal scored by Tusker but changed his mind following protests from Gor fans and players.Here is Matano’s reaction pic.twitter.com/mpAtjg81BM— Meshack Kisenge (@kisengemeshack1) April 9, 2022 “We cannot conduct the elections due to time. Those taking over will be given that mandate. We will only give recommendations for the elections and those coming will do the elections and there will be no power vacuum. There will be those who will take over even if it’s the normalization committee.The Caretaker Committee is not here to make referees suffer, they will get their monies, they should just be patient because we have already started paying them. It is just that there are structures and they are being paid according to their leagues,” added Amour.
