Nea Salamina called for a reassessment of the arbitration system’s operation, in a letter sent to the Cyprus Football Association (CFA), expressing strong concerns about incorrect decisions that, it claims, have cost the team points.
The “Red-and-Whites’” press officer, Loizos Moisos, speaking on SPOR FM 95, focused particularly on the explanations provided by the head of refereeing, Damato, regarding controversial plays, raising questions about both the criteria for the decisions and the use of VAR.
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The draw for the Coca-Cola Youth Cup will take place next Monday
The draw for the Coca-Cola Youth Cup will take place next Monday
At the same time, he clarified that the “Red-and-Whites” will not file a complaint regarding the match against APOEL, as they believe it is likely that their complaints would not even be considered.
In detail:
How he views the match against Apollon: “It will certainly be extremely difficult; the level of difficulty is a given. The goal is the three points; we’re going there and we want the win—if you go into any game aiming for anything less than a win, you’ve already lost.”
On the fans: “We’ve been allocated about 1,000 tickets; the fans will be there. We want their support—their dynamic presence translates directly into our performance on the field.”
On Konaté, who has accumulated yellow cards: “He’ll be available for the match against Apollon but will sit out the game against Paphos; Alois Konfé will also be out after undergoing surgery.”
On refereeing: “We have a lot to say; as Nea Salamina, we are directly concerned with the refereeing system as a whole, which is why we took the necessary steps— we sent a letter to the Cyprus Football Association (CFA) requesting a reassessment of the entire system’s operation; it was sent in the past few days.”
On whether there are solutions to refereeing errors: “First, the major issues must be examined, and solutions and proposals do exist. When we see decisions that are incorrect and the authorities acknowledge this, those decisions have cost us points.”
Regarding the incident with APOEL: “We will not be filing this complaint; we believe there is no reason to do so, we believe it is very likely that our complaints won’t even be reviewed; we will donate the money we would have spent on the complaint to charity. I was present at the briefing, and Mr. Damato essentially told us that the penalty incident did not occur and that there is a clear directive from UEFA not to award such penalties inour case, it was awarded; the incident involving Sastre in Varos was at the referee’s discretion and was not considered a violent foul, which raises major questions for us. Another question arises from the president’s letter: when is a tackle considered violent? Because if that isn’t considered a violent tackle, what is? This has troubled usthe federation’s admission that we’re facing an adaptation issue with VAR—which is why we brought in foreign experts from the start to correct the problem— if we’re facing an assimilation problem with VAR—a technology that’s been in Cyprus since December 2020— we’re asking for blind trust in the Cypriot referee; we’re bringing in foreign experts for VAR—so how can you then ask the teams to have blind trust and absolute support for the referee on the field? We believe that certain teams have begun to attack the referees and engage in character assassination; we believe this does not affect us, because we believe we have been wronged; and the federation itself, through its decisions and the concessions made to Mr. Damatos, fully vindicates us regarding the complaints we have raised, and we believe that this does not concern us.”
