Panama attack Concacaf ‘corrupt thieves’ after Gold Cup loss to Mexico

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/25/panama-concacaf-corrupt-thieves-gold-cup-mexico

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Concacaf has launched an investigation after Panama’s FA described the officiating in its team’s 2-1 Gold Cup semi-final defeat to Mexico as “insulting and embarrassing”, and accused the referee of favouring Mexico in a “vulgar and shameless way”.

The match ended in chaotic scenes, with the Panama goalkeeper Jaime Penedo pushing an assistant referee as players protested. Earlier in the game, his team-mate Luis Tejada had refused to leave the field having been sent off. Both were later banned for two games, while Panama were fined for “team misconduct both on and off the field”.

The Panama players were incensed by the last-minute penalty awarded to Mexico, which led to their late equaliser. Mexico went on to win 2-1 in extra time, via another penalty. Players later posed with a banner calling Concacaf corruptos ladrónes (corrupt thieves), while the nation’s FA president Pedro Chaluja said: “We feel that game was fixed.”

Concacaf’s president, Alfredo Hawit, said that the referee, Mark Geiger, had “accepted that officiating errors had been made” which “impacted the outcome”, but that “such human errors are part of the game”.

Concacaf, the governing body for football in North and central America and the Caribbean, said it would now review requests that the entire 10-member Gold Cup referees committee should resign, with Panama alleging Geiger had acted with “clear intention of harming our XI”, which was the “last straw” following a string of bad decisions throughout the tournament.

In a separate development, Costa Rica officials made similar requests to Concacaf, having been upset by the manner of their quarter-final defeat – another controversial final-minute penalty award to Mexico.

Concacaf said it would consider the complaints. “The confederation takes these claims extremely seriously and will look into them immediately.”

Hawit became president of the governing body in May after his most recent predecessors, Jeffrey Webb and Jack Warner, were both named in a US federal indictment charging officials with racketeering, bribery and money laundering. Both deny wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Concacaf’s 2018 World Cup qualifying draw handed Mexico an opening match against Honduras. Elsewhere, Trinidad & Tobago are likely to provide the toughest opposition to the USA in their first qualifying group, while Jamaica, who enter the competition at an earlier stage, face Nicaragua in a two-legged tie. If they win that they will go into a group containing Costa Rica and Panama as seeded teams.