Board member of Accra Great Olympics, Fred Pappoe says the decision by the Ghana Football Association to ban referee Reginald Lathbridge for his role in the GFA-Olympics legal case is unfair, describing the referee as an unfortunate victim of circumstances.
Referee Reginald Lathbridge’s was handed a life ban by the Disciplinary Committee (DC) of the GFA on March 20, 2018 for failing to submit a complete and accurate match report to the GFA in match day seven of the 2016/2017 Ghana Premier League (GPL) between Bechem United FC and Elmina Sharks FC at Bechem thereby bringing the game into disrepute. His error resulted in Great Olympics’ court case with the GFA, a move that delayed the start of the league for weeks.
When questioned on Ghanaweb TV’s Sports Check, if Great Olympics expected referee Lathbridge to be sanctioned, the former GFA Vice President told host, Daniel Oduro that “he’s rather become a poor victim of circumstances and a lame scape goat who has become the victim of irresponsible leadership. “He is alleged to have presented the report seven months after the time to correct another report, if you go into the intricacies of the matter, he indicated that his attention has been drawn to, who drew his attention to it,” Pappoe quizzed.
He added that, “When he brought his report to correct the one written seven months earlier to a body which did not see anything wrong with the report filed seven months after the period, they went ahead to use the report to exonerate some players we had indicated were not qualified to have played those matches.”
Fred Pappoe further explained that, Great Olympics proceeded to court on another basis after the DC rejected their call for the unqualified players to be punished. Expressing how upset he was at the DC for their actions in Lathbridge’s case, Pappoe said, “If you the Disciplinary Committee recognized that the report was valid and potent enough for you to free those three players why then do you comeback and punish someone for writing that report, it’s unfair and I feel very sad for Mr. Lathbridge and I would have felt the same for any person.”
Pappoe is not the only person who has described the life ban as harsh, earlier this week another former Vice President of the GFA, George Afriyie admonished the referee to appeal the decision. George Afriyie in an interview with Accra based Asempa FM, said “Lathbridge committed an honest mistake. It was a mistake anybody could easily commit.
“It would have been different if he went back to correct his mistake to benefit one party, but he didn’t. “He simply realized that he had made an error and went back to correct it. “The punishment was too harsh and uncalled for. If I were him I’d appeal the decision, he said”
Watch full video of Sports Check below
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