Page 59 - MIN VOS 27 JULY 2015

Concacaf has pledged Panama attack Concacaf
an inquiry after Panama ‘corrupt thieves’ after
claimed their semi-final
defeat in the Gold Cup to Gold Cup loss to Mexico
Mexico had been fixed

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 was 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 ref-
eree, 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 alleg-
ing 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 contro-
versial 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 indict-
ment 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 Hondu-
ras. Elsewhere, Trinidad & Tobago are likely to provide
the toughest opposition to the USA in their first qualify-
ing 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.

ARUBA TRAVELLER - Monday, July 27 2015 19SPORTS