If you’ve paid even the slightest bit of attention to MLS this season, you’ve no doubt seen that the level of officiating in the league has regressed to even lower levels of awfulness (is that a word?) this year. Several star players have been lost to bad tackles attributable to game mismanagement by referees, countless matches have been affected by blatantly incorrect decisions, basically it stinks.
New York Red Bulls General Manager Erik Soler Blasts MLS Officiating
John Spencer, head coach of the Portland Timbers, was hit with a fine and suspension last week by the league for his comments about Abbey Okulaja, and you had to figure that wouldn't be the last time a coach or team executive called out the referees. Sure enough, it happened again today.
Before I get to what New York Red Bulls general manager Erik Soler said, here is the video of the incident between Thierry Henry and Adam Moffat that prompted his comments.
Pretty straight forward in me eyes. Yes there was a little back and forth between Henry and Moffat, but certainly nothing to warrant a yellow, or let alone a red card. Instead, referee Ricardo Salazar makes an complete over-reaction to the situation. As you would expect, the Red Bulls aren’t pleased and Erik Soler made his feeling clear in a statement released today.
"We have carefully reviewed the film of our match against Portland last night and I can safely say that the level of refereeing was absolutely below the standards of what is required for a MLS match and completely unacceptable. First, the red card given to Thierry Henry was inexplicable. There was no violent conduct on his part whatsoever and this decision was made by a linesman who was more than half a field away. Second, in any soccer game, there is no way that one team can draw 20 more fouls than the other team, especially in a match where one team drew just five fouls. I have never seen this occur in my 30 years in the game.
We are aware that U.S. Soccer and MLS are working hard to improve the officiating in this country and we support those efforts wholeheartedly. However, if we want to continue increasing the level of play, we cannot let these types of refereeing performances occur. We look forward to speaking with the League to appeal Thierry's automatic red card suspension and expect that it will be rescinded so that he is available for our match Thursday in Seattle."
The only potentially interesting thing left to see is whether or not MLS fines Soler, which I think they will in much the same way that male animals will exert dominance by making loud noises and strutting around their territory.
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