Blue Eagles player, Micium Mhone, allegedly provoked referee Mayamiko Kanjere during his team’s 3-0 defeat away to FCB Nyasa Big Bullets on Sunday by boasting in front of the referee that “this is why we beat referees.”
According to Wa Ganyu, an online sports page, Mhone ranted at Kanjere at half time in the tunnel when the two teams and the officiating personnel were heading to the dressing room.
At this moment, Bullets were leading 1-0, a goal they scored in the 4th minute through Yamikani Fodya’s excellent free kick.
Malawi24 went further to find out exactly what led to the ranting and how the two were separated in the tunnel.
According to information at hand, Mhone rushed to the referee and accused him of favoring Bullets by awarding them two back-to-back corner kicks.
Kanjere responded by advising him to focus on his game, saying “referees don’t award corners, teams create them.”
This did not go well with the player who boasted, “This is why we beat referees.”
Mhone’s sentiments angered Kanjere who openly warned him that he will not flash cards to the player but he would beat him and in the process, he pounced on the player who was rescued by fellow team-mate Sankhani Mkandawire.
Further to this, Malawi24 has discovered that there was no team talk in the dressing room as Eagle’s technical panel pounced on Mhone, blaming him for causing unnecessary tension with the officiating panel.
It has been discovered that Christopher Sibale, who was taking charge in the absence of Eliya Kananji, feared that Kanjere would retaliate in the field of play by flashing unnecessary cards to the visitors but, surprisingly, the referee only flashed one yellow card to Mkandawire for a reckless foul on Ephraim Kondowe in the additional minutes of the match.
Shockingly and without shame, Sibale, in his post-match interview, told reporters that his team lost concentration in the second half due to the threats on his players from the referee.
“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 threats, my players lost concentration and lost the match.
“You can even differentiate how we performed in the first half as compared to 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,” he said.
He, however, contracted himself when he finally accepted 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 in the end, we lost the match,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Area 30 based side will face Super League of Malawi disciplinary committee on Wednesday to answer related charges following reports that players manhandled referee Rose Zimba and her panel during their 1-0 loss to Ekwendeni Hammers a fortnight ago.
