American referee Mark Geiger, who has shown himself to be one of the top refs in MLS over the past few years, is working his second World Cup in Russia this summer. Yesterday, he drew one of the toughest games of the tournament to officiate — Portugal vs. Morocco, which saw a defensive and somewhat nasty Portugal team holding on against a Morocco team that was desperately trying to stay alive in the World Cup and throw men forward.
FIFA shuts down bizarre accusation that American referee asked Portugal player for a jersey
A Morocco player alleges Mark Geiger asked for Pepe’s jersey, though FIFA says the whole thing is nonsense.
Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images
Things got contentious. Morocco players were displeased with a lot of the calls that were made. And after the game, the Morocco players set off a firestorm when they made a pretty serious accusation: That Geiger had asked a Portugal player for his teammate’s jersey during the game.
It’s a strange allegation, one made stranger by the way Morocco players say they got this information. They don’t claim they heard Geiger ask the player. Rather, one player said Portugal center back Pepe told them Geiger had asked his teammate Cristiano Ronaldo for Pepe’s shirt. Yeah.
From USA Today:
“I do not know what he is used to,” Morocco midfielder Nordin Amrabat told Dutch television NOS. “But he was very impressed with Cristiano Ronaldo and I hear from (Portugal defender) Pepe that he asked (Ronaldo) in the first half if he could have (Pepe’s) shirt.
“What are we talking about? At the World Cup? It’s not a circus here.”
This is all strange. Why would Geiger ask Ronaldo for Pepe’s jersey? Wouldn’t Geiger just want Ronaldo’s jersey? And if you’re Geiger, and working your entire career to get to the World Cup, the biggest tournament in the sport, would you throw it all away so you could ask the world’s most famous soccer player to get the jersey of his not-so-famous teammate?
(And for those of you reading the above quote and wondering if Amrabat meant he wanted Ronaldo’s jersey, it appears that NOS has checked the footage and confirmed it was Pepe’s jersey that Amrabat is alleging Geiger wanted.)
FIFA agreed with the assessment that this all seems a bit farfetched, apparently, as they’ve dismissed the allegations and placed Geiger right back into the mix of things, having him work as a video replay official for today’s World Cup matches.
Here is FIFA’s statement, complete with them forgetting to move the mouse away for the screenshot.
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