Although they have advanced through to the quarterfinals of the prestigious Coca Cola Cup through beating Santos 1-0 via a golden goal struck well by David Kannemeyer at the Athlone stadium in Cape Town over the weekend, Kaizer Chiefs Football Club have issued a statement, demonstrating their commitment to the call for more professional and trained refereeing in the top flight football league of a sport loved by millions of South Africans. This follows a weekend where all three Coca Cola Cup last 16 games were marred by controversial referees decisions that cost some clubs their further participation in the tournament.

Referring to statements made by the club’s coach in a post match press conference in Cape Town, PRO of the Amakhosi, Putco Mafani said: "I agree with the coach that as much as there is lot of noise about the referee's blunders against Santos in an incident involving Arthur Zwane, actually if the referee was on top of the game he should have awarded Chiefs a penalty in an elbowing incident that saw Sibusiso Dlamini brought down in the penalty box earlier on the day. It is a pity that the officials at the game were not spot-on and the side that advances to the next round is getting a stick from some quarters of the media and the public."

"It is a pity that everywhere around the world referees mistakes will sometimes happen against you or sometimes for your benefit. Look at how we lost the Coke Cup last year. We cannot blame Cosmos for that. You like it or not they are the champs of the Coke Cup besides the referee's obvious blunders that marred that glorious final. They scored from an off-side and before that Jabu Pule was brought down in the box and a penalty not given. Sometimes referees never get to see these incidents in the heat of the moment. In some cases players get away with it, look at Maradona giving his country Argentina a world cup through what was later billed as the 'hand of God' and that action was seen later through TV replays. We pity Santos but we were also robbed of a penalty earlier but somehow some quarters of the media have chosen to ignore it as a point of highlights, and we resent that," concluded Mafani.

In Polokwane, in a game involving Supersport United and Silver Stars, the former were denied a goal after a one-two move involving Thando Mngomeni to set up one of the goals that would have been one of the ‘flair’ goals of the tournament so far. This also was seen after TV replays that it should have stood as a legitimate goal. In another incident involving referees’ blunders Moroka Swallows goalkeeper Etafia was wrongfully given a red card in what might have appeared to have been a handling of the ball but later on after viewing the videos of the game the official in question Jerome Damon wrote in his report that he made a mistake and there are chances that such a red card might be revoked.

It remains to be seen what recommendations and judgment will come out of the emergency meeting following these incidents. Speaking after viewing all TV replays Team Manager of Amakhosi, Bobby Motaung said: "We have always been in the forefront calling authorities to take drastic measures about the declining standards in local refereeing. The officiating in our game against Santos should not be treated in isolation. This season alone Chiefs have already suffered as a result of poor refereeing in two league matches. It is not our intention to defend something we do not even need to defend but we had to state our case as a responsible citizen of football. As much as millions have gone into the upgrading of the game, the same needs to happen to the upgrading of the referees or the status will remain the same. We also hope that these emergency meetings will always be there to rectify these mistakes, regardless of which clubs were involved."

Some section of the media were even suggesting that Santos were robbed R2m, whereas they were robbed an opportunity to advance to the next stages, had they been awarded that penalty and converted it. The same goes to the penalty denied for Chiefs in the same game.

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