The 2020/21 Ghana Premier League enters Week 28 this weekend as two points separate the leader of the league Hearts of Oak – 49 points – and Asante Kotoko – 47.
Class One referee Maxwell Owusu has been banned for the rest of the season after awarding a non-existent penalty against Elmina Sharks in their game against Hearts of Oak.
“Referee Maxwell Kofi Owusu is suspended from all football related activities for the rest of the football season after being found to have erred in awarding a penalty to Hearts of Oak, ignoring the flag of the assistant referee to indicate the movement of the goalkeeper and for sending off player number 20 instead of player number 25 of Elmina Sharks for the offence deemed to have been committed”
Overall the performance of the men in black have not been deplorable but there are certainly instances where some of them put up horrible officiating and the Maxwell Owusu example is a clear evidence.
In order to produce a legitimate winner of football matches and also assist match referees to make more correct decisions, the advanced leagues and associations in Europe and elsewhere introduded the Video Assistant Referee. Before that there was the introduction of the Goal Line Technology.
Since we do not have these technological advancement in the Ghana Premier League, it means the referees have to perform above their standard – they have to be the VAR themselves because there is none to assist them.
Perhaps it a VAR was installed in the said game – the errors commitetd by Maxwell Owusu would have been corrected by the VAR and this embarrassing ban would have been prevented . This is obvious.
I believe in order to have a more credible winner of the 2020/21 Ghana Premier League, the men in black must step up their game to limit their rate of errors to an acceptable degree.
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