Al Ain FC Officially Lodges A Protest Against the Controversially Match Referee Decisions Taken in Round 3 Match Against Sharjah
Al Ain Football Club has filed an official protest to the UAE Football Association (UAEFA) and the Professional League Committee (PLC) on the profoundly flawed decisions taken by the match referee. The decisions which Al Ain FC sees as negatively and crucially affected the result of the matchweek 3 against Al Sharjah FC held on Thursday 3rd October 2019 at Al Sharjah Stadium.
In its official statement made public on the Club’s website and all its official accounts on social media, Al Ain Club Management emphasized: “The project of the “VAR” technology was adopted to improve and further boost up the performance of the referees and to ensure implementing the principle of equal opportunities between competing clubs in all matches in various tournaments.”
Al Ain Club Management also stressed: “To this end, Al Ain Cub Management has always demonstrated their good will in everyone based on the Club’s responsibility to realize the aspirations of the UAEFA and PLC locally and continentally. Moreover, Al Ain Club has greater obligations towards the Club’s masses of loyal fans and supporters during the team’s home and away matches and has been allocating huge budgets to meet such a massive responsibility.”
The protest main topic was on ruling out the team’s third goal. “The match referee’s decision to rule out a right and legal goal at a pivotal point in the match affected the result according to all expert referees who commented on the match in various local channels. Such a fully erroneous decision led the Club and even the fans to lose precious three points in the team’s journey to compete to win the title.”
The Club also stressed: “There seems to be a certain flaw that impedes us to take advantage of such technology meant to establish justice and fair play in the UAE football competitions”
Meanwhile, Al Ain Club Management hailed the performance of the players of the Al Ain First Football Team against Al Sharjah and the efforts exerted by the coaching team under the command of the quality Croatian coach, Ivan Leko. “The Al Ain squad performed perfectly despite the absence of key players. We have full confidence in the team’s administrative staff, coaching teams, and the loyal fans to keep going in showing their excellence and superiority to arrive at the highest indicators of success.”
“Indeed, losing such an away match in the early stages of the league competitions might happen in football, but it is not the end of the world considering the generous support of the Club’s leadership and the determination of the squad stars and their desire to achieve the pre-set goals. We have to remember the remarkable support of the fans to fulfill the aspirations of the Boss,” the Club stressed.
The official statement also puts a spotlight on the fact that all the team’s members share the responsibility of winning or losing any match. “We completely deny the unsound justifications to hold a certain party liable without the others.”
Al Ain Club Management concluded the official statement by emphasizing their full confidence in the UAEFA to take the remarks raised by the member clubs into their consideration and takes actions accordingly. “We fully trust that the UAEFA will consider all remarks lodged by clubs who allocate huge financial budgets each season to achieve their pre-set goals. We are sure that UAEFA will consider them as a priority in their quest to improve the overall performance in all areas, specifically refereeing.”
