Referees in the media (week 7)

‘Referees in the media’ will be published at the beginning of the week on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading.

“The referee had a broken nose and was bleeding like a cow. We punished Luis heavily and told him it was the end.”

The technical director of Nacional, Daniel Enriquez, about an incident with Luis Suarez when he was just 15.

“If you have confidence in yourself and have good attitude, I’m sure you will be successful in this programme.”

AFC Referees Director Yoshimi Ogawa at the start of the Project Future Referees.

“It’s very good that players and referees meet eachother in a different setting than around a match.”

Dutch FA organized a meeting with trainers, players and referees from professional level. Danny Hesp from players board is happy with it.

Suarez gets 7 match ban for biting

Ajax player Luis Suarez accepted a 7 match ban for biting his opponent. The captain of the Amsterdam team made the offence in last weekend’s top match against PSV. International referee Björn Kuipers missed it, but Suarez got the ban after watching video footage.

The club already sanctioned Suarez with two matches and a “huge fine”, according to club officials. The amount is not made public, but will be given to a charity.

See the biting incident below. I think the referee should’ve seen it, because he got a clear from not more than a metre.

What do you think about the height of the ban? And does anyone know what the highest ban is in your country? Would be great to compare some countries.

Update: Highest ban in Dutch soccer is for Henk van Ramselaar who got a 2,5 year ban in 1975. The player got a red card by referee George Oetelmans and gave the ref after that a karate kick in his stomach. There’s no video footage of this, but Dutch journalist Michel van Egmond wrote a wonderful article about the offender, when he spoke Van Ramselaar about 30+ years after the incident.