What is poor officiation?

Barely weeks into the new domestic football season, the ‘poor officiation’ jazz is getting to its crescendo.

Nothing new with the fact that in a poor country with predominantly poor people, some feel officiation is poor. Show me anything that is not poor in Malawi football.

What is special with referees? Let us also extend to poor sports reporting/commentary, poor pitches, poor administration, poor skills and poor coaching.

Are the referees blameless? They are, but then this is a general Malawi football evil.

My point is that the poor officiation jazz is one-dimensional, ambiguous and utter sour grapes.

Should the coaches not complain about poor officiation? They should, but in a civilised manner and with clarity. The whole bench descending on referees is being uncivilised.

Does it mean the referees are incompetent, inconsistent or biased?

Granted, most people who peddle the thinking that referees are poor, hardly understand the 17 Laws of the Game.

Second, most teams which blame referees are at the centre of trying to bribe referees.

Before games, coaches and officials text referees to fix matches. Can you stand on a higher moral ground?

And why are complaints about poor officiation common after a loss or a draw?

The men in black can do better, but assertions that they are the worst, smacks of exaggeration and hypocrisy.

Such remarks assume that football, a game often characterised by cheating and dishonesty, is a fair game. If it were, Fifa would not have been preaching fair play etc.

If there were honesty in football, people would not have been talking fondly of Diego Maradona’s handball that helped Argentina win the World Cup in 1986.

Imagine Maradona is ranked among the greatest footballers—even after his drugs’ abuse revelations!

Football is always harsh and unfair.

A few weeks ago, Malaga exited the 2013 Uefa Champions League quarter-final second leg due to two clearly blatantly offside Borussia Dortmund goals.

Last weekend, Orlando Pirates survived a red card [Lucky Lekghwathi] and conceded two penalties [goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa saved] to sail through in the CAF Champions League group stages at TP Mazembe’s expense.

To succeed, Pirates chose to just play football. Malawi clubs must do the same. Take poor officiation in your stride.

Football has a way of balancing itself up —today’s victims of offside goals are beneficiaries of the sametomorrow. Football only remembers winners.