Referees union ‘outraged’ about Neville’s comments, complaints
The Professional Soccer Referees Association, a labor union representing more than 200 officials in North America, was “outraged” by Inter Miami coach Phil Neville’s public criticism of MLS officiating after a 1-0 loss to the New York Red Bulls on Saturday.
The organization is also dissatisfied with the league’s response — an undisclosed fine.
“The PSRA is very disappointed both in Mr. Neville’s comments and behavior, which we find to be unprofessional and reprehensible, and also in the outcome from commissioner [Don] Garber,” Steve Taylor, executive director of the PSRA, told the Miami Herald on Wednesday.
He said cases in other leagues led to more severe punishment, citing a fivematch ban on former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson in 2011 for saying that referee Martin Atkinson should not have been assigned to his game because the occasion demanded “a fair referee”.
“There’s lots of cases where there are suspensions for far less than using the word `cheat’ or a variation of that word eight times in an 11-minute press conference,” Taylor said. “Our officials do not cheat, and no one was robbed. We come to work every day and don’t care who wins or loses. To suggest otherwise is reprehensible in our opinion and potentially criminal, as a matter of fact.
“But the commissioner saw fit to issue a fine and that’s that.”
Taylor, who was an on-field MLS official from
1996 to 2012, emailed a letter on behalf of the PSRA membership to Garber on Monday and to Neville on Wednesday. He also expressed the group’s concerns to Howard
Webb, general manager of PRO (Professional Referees Organization), which was started in 2012 by
MLS and the U.S. Soccer Federation to increase the quality of officiating in
U.S. and Canadian professional leagues.
Neville has been in conversation with league officials during the past few days and plans to issue a statement during his weekly news conference Thursday.
“I have been involved with this league from the very first day and I cannot recall a situation that is as severe as this one in terms of coach behavior and implying and flatly stating that referees are cheating,” Taylor said.
He said athletes and coaches complaining about calls is part of sports, but the PSRA felt Neville’s
comments went beyond that.
“There are tight decisions, controversial decisions, mistakes made, there’s a human element here for sure,” Taylor said. “But to publicly take it to the level of accusing three or four different crews of people on three or four different games he mentioned of cheating is flatly unacceptable to us.
“Impugning the reputation of the officials who work in MLS each week is unacceptable. We wrap up the letter by saying that he can rest assured that our members will continue to perform their jobs as professionals that they are and in so doing he will always receive a fairly officiated game. He may not feel like it sometimes, but we’re doing our upmost to apply the laws and rules uniformly. We expect better from him going forward and we hope he recognizes that sporting integrity is of upmost importance to us.”
After the loss at New
York Neville slammed the MLS video review system, saying his team was “cheated” out of a goal when Gonzalo Higuain was called offside. The club provided photos to support his claim.
It was the third game in a row Miami lost 1-0, and all three involved controversial calls. In the previous game at Portland, Julian Carranza’s apparent game-tying goal was nullified for a foul. In the Atlanta game, Leandro Gonzalez Pirez was called for a questionable hand ball in the box, resulting in Atlanta’s game-winning penalty kick.
After the New York loss, Neville called for a “massive investigation’’ into calls against his team, which is mired in a fivegame losing skid heading into a road game at Columbus on Saturday.
“I’m just going to go full barrel,” Neville said. “We were told this week that the Atlanta penalty should not have happened, so we were cheated in Atlanta. We then got told we should have had two penalties plus the goal in Portland, so we got cheated in Portland. And we’ve been cheated [Saturday night].
“I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but something is fundamentally wrong with the way referees are treating Inter Miami. We’re playing in one of the best leagues in the world, and I’m having one of the greatest experiences of my career, but I’ve got a dressing room that’s asking real, real questions about the integrity of this league in terms of the decisions we keep getting. I cannot accept this.”