FC Rostov secured a vital home win against Spartak Moscow on Saturday and, with CSKA Moscow’s defeat to Zenit St. Petersburg on Sunday evening, this victory took them two points clear at the top of the Russian Premier League.
However, the main talking point from the match has been the referee, Sergei Lapochkin.
As you can see in the video, both of the Rostov goals should have been called offside. However, the decision is so tight that it is absurd to hammer the refereeing team for these decisions.
The refereeing display has attracted controversy and even the head of the Russian Football Union, Vitaly Mutko, has had his say. Mutko is never one to mince his words and has once again come out with some rather outlandish statements.
Mutko said that Lapochkin and his team should never referee again and that referees should be made to take lie detector tests if their performances are questionable. These statements are baffling and should have been highly criticized. However, a member of the RFU referee’s committee, Andrey Butenko, put it down to an ‘emotional reaction’ rather than an actual idea of Mutko’s.
Furthermore, in a bizarre move, the head of the referee’s committee, Nikolai Levnikov, said he was prepared to put referees through lie detectors if the order came from Mutko.
‘If there is any suspicion of dishonest actions from referees then it may be possible to use a lie detector. However, first we must establish a procedure to consider the quality of refereeing in the match between Rostov and Spartak.’
However, thankfully, a bit of sense was inputted into the conversation by legendary referee, Sergei Khusainov.
In an interview with Russian newspaper Sport Den za Dnem, Khusainov was asked about the possibility of foreign referees coming to the Russian Premier League. In his answer, he used the example of Sergei Karasev’s excellent refereeing display during the recent Champions League match between Barcelona and Arsenal to show that there are good Russian referees. However, he did not go as far to criticize Mutko for his outburst.
Overall, this bizarre reaction from Mutko and the refereeing committee’s response to it is hardly likely to make young people want to become referees. This small ‘emotional outburst’ from Mutko could damage Russian refereeing for years to come.
The lack of criticism of this very irresponsible and unprofessional act by Mutko from the refereeing community is also of great concern and perhaps demonstrates that referees are scared of Mutko. Very worrying indeed.
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