Blue Eagles FC assistant coach Christopher Sibale says his team lost 3-0 to defending champions FCB Nyasa Big Bullets because Referee Mayamiko Kanjere threatened to beat Eagles players when the two teams were heading to the tunnel at half time.
The Area 30 based side had a better first half than their opponents but failed to convert their chances into goals from which Bullets capitalized to score three goals through Yamikani Fodya, Hassan Kajoke and Ephraim Kondowe to take them top of the standings, level on points with Silver Strikers but with a superior goal difference.
Surprisingly, Sibale, who was in charge of the team in the absence of head coach Eliya Kananji, who is with the Malawi National Football Team at the ongoing Cosafa Cup in South Africa, attributed the loss at an alleged Kanjere’s sentiments at half time in the tunnel.
“We lost because of what Referee Mayamiko Kanjere said to my players at half time in the tunnel. He threatened to beat them simply because we had been accused of beating referees, so after these words, my players lost concentration and lost the match.
“You can even differentiate how we performed in the first half as to compared how we fared in the second half. My players were very much afraid because they had no idea of who was to be beaten by the referee. We lost because of those threats from the referee,” he said.
However, he contradicted himself when he conceded defeat as a result of his team’s failure to convert chances into goals.
“It happens in football. When you have chances and you fail to score, your opponents capitalize and score from the few chances created, and that’s exactly what has happened today. We had all the opportunities to score goals and win the match, but my players failed to score, and our friends capitalized to score the three goals.
“We will go back to the drawing board and fix this problem. We need to be scoring goals from the plenty of chances we always create during matches,” he concluded.
The defeat saw Eagles dropping further to 8th position with 15 points from 12 games.
This was the first time in two seasons for them to lose to Bullets at Kamuzu Stadium, having played two back-to-back draws against the log leaders in two seasons in a row.
