"Only our foreign players seemed to get carded," says JDT manager Mario Gomez

Mario Gomez lambasted the referring against his team ahead of crucial semi-final second leg game against Bengaluru FC. The side from Malaysia are without key men Pereyra Diaz, Martin Lucero and Amri Yahyah who all picked up a yellow card in the first leg against Bengaluru FC, leaving the Argentine without his preferred striking partnership ahead of the game at the Sree Kanteerva Stadium.

Speaking ahead of the game, the man in charge of the defending champions said, “All referees can have a good day and a bad day, but if you see the video you will understand. Every time the rival team fouls us behind the ball, then there isn’t a problem, but when we do then it’ s a yellow card. When I want to complain, I cannot, because the fourth official is fighting with me all the time."

“But I’m not stupid, I know what’s going on. I have four Champions League titles (not just one). When a referee makes mistakes it’s ok, he’s human and we are human. But I don’t like these mistakes to happen tomorrow.” he continued.

“When you smell something is bad you make out. In our match against South China also where we drew 1-1 this happened. We got six yellow cards, every time our foreigners get the card. When we played the last match we had 10 players on the limit and again tomorrow it is six. Even if we reach the final we will be without some players. This is not normal.”

When he is asked if he is hinting at corruption, he promptly replied, “I don’t want to talk about that. I never talk about that word (corruption) because I don’t know. I don’t have proof. I only say that I don’t like that referee. I never talked about the referees but only for the last match. I don’t want that to happen again tomorrow, whether we win or lose I talk before the match and not after.”

When asked about the match on hand, Gomez still persisted with the narrative of the referee, he said “But with other team(Bengaluru FC), nothing. Why only us? Last game, I can show you three instance, where we were wrongly penalised by the referee. Yes, we drew. Probably because we didn’t play well or BFC played well. But for tomorrow, we are scared about the referee.”

When asked about his plan for the game against the Bangalore outfit, he seemed confident of his team’s chances, “It’s a difficult game for us. But we need just one goal. we know that Bengaluru is very string in defence. But we have 90 minutes to score that one goal. Patience is key. We need to be patience and need to stick to our plan and play accordingly.”

Hopefully, for the neutrals and the fans of the respective teams, this is the last we hear about the referee.