Abra-Appiah spits fire

Accra, Oct 11, GNA 96 Welbeck Abrah-Appiah, Chairman of the Professional League Board (PLB) has spat fire, insisting the Referees Appointments Committee's (RAC) action of amplifying the axing of two referees from the premier league was unjustified.

He told the GNA Sports: "It is not their prerogative to tell us who to maintain or who not to, when it was made clear to all before the commencement of the season that under performing officials would not have a second bite of the cheery."

The PLB on Monday cut ties with two referees Stephen Oduro and Sampson Quao, citing underperformance in support of their action.

Both are Class One referees.

The decision has also been criticized by Alex Quartey, Vice Chairman of the RAC, who insisted it was unfair to use a single game to appraise officials, basing his argument on the usual three chances offered by the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) in its appraisal module.

Abrah-Appiah told the GNA Sports, "it amazes me to hear such arguments and comparisons when it is evident that whilst CAF has the luxury of affording match officials more games, the most any referee can have on the local scene in a season is four games."

The RAC selected almost a hundred officials for the season with a few on stand - bye and the PLB capo insists 93they cannot set questions for us and answer them by themselves. "It is most unfair for anyone to think that it is a crime to

reprimand only two out of the lot who have officiated in 40 games and yet keep mute about the five others we highly commended."

He said his outfit would stand by its decision and would not be cowed to shield its policy of reviewing the performance of the referees games after game. "It took one unpopular decision from a referee to send about 127 people to their graves and must we sit down for another misfortune to occur before reacting?" he quizzed.

The PLB's decision, he said was informed by a monitoring and review committee set up by both parties at the beginning of the season. The said the committee, the GNA Sports has gathered, had a competent FIFA referee as its head.