Former referees, who are experts of officiating rules, Ace Ncobo and Victor Hlungwane have clashed in their interpretation over a big incident in a match between Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns.
In the DStv Premiership match last Wednesday, the Buccaneers felt Sundowns goalkeeper Ronwen Williams should have received a straight red card after he tackled Zakhele Lepasa out of the box, who was clear on goal while the Brazilians supporters felt the referee made a correct decision to give Williams only a yellow card.
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There has been huge debates around refereeing decisions since that game, which included an early penalty for Sundowns and decisions by referees in the MTN8 semi-final second leg involving the Brazilians and Kaizer Chiefs.
All eyes were then on refereeing experts, Ncobo, who has a regular review segment on SuperSport's Extra-Time and Hlungwane, who does the same for SABC's Soccer Zone.
Although the two former referees agreed in most decisions, they had a different interpretation on whether Williams should have been sent off against Pirates.
According to Ncobo, the Bafana Bafana goalkeeper should have received a straight red card for denying Lepasa an obvious goalscoring opportunity.
"Had he not been fouled, he would've had an obvious opportunity to score a goal. Yellow is not the correct colour of card there, because he was denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity. It should've been a red (card)," Ncobo said on SuperSport TV.
"There is an infringement by the goalkeeper (Williams) and that infringement takes away the obvious goalscoring opportunity (for Lepasa). That's where the red card should've come in," he said.
However, his counterpart, Hlungwane, believes the referee Masixole Bambiso made the right call to give Williams only a yellow card and detailed what referees consider when dealing with an issue of denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity.
"This is where we're talking about DOGSO (denying of obvious goalscoring opportunity) situation. We're looking at the consideration, D-D-D-C, Distance to goal, Direction of play, number of Defenders, and Control of the ball," Hlungwane explained on SABC Sport.
"Distance to goal we give it a tick, the ball is moving to the side, it's not moving to a space where we can say it's obvious, so we have an element of doubt there.
"The other one we're looking at the number and location of defenders, as he traps the ball, there's a (Sundowns) defender running parallel to Lepasa, so there's another doubt that the defender can cover," he said.
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"The last one is control of the ball, as he tries to control the ball, it moves a little bit to the side, so it's no longer obvious, that's why the referee decided to give (Lepasa) a yellow card for SPA, Stopping A Promising Attack," he added.
There has been calls for Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to be introduced in the PSL to avoid referees making mistakes but Ncobo and Hlungwane disagreeing on such a game-changing situation shows that even with VAR, which will have referees in the control room, some incidents will still be open to different interpretations.
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