Referee Makes Decision, Gets Chased By Mob Of Players And Beaten After Defending Himself With Corner Flag

An Ethiopian Premier League match has ended in chaos after the referee was chased by players and coaching staff and beaten to the ground for awarding a decision against a side.

Welwalo Adigrat University players and staff felt compelled to chase and attack the referee after he ruled that the ball did cross the line and awarded a goal to the opposition.

The referee attempted to defend himself with the corner flag after being chase. This was before a member of the Welwalo Adigrat University's coaching staff decided to punch the floored official in the face.

The coach has since been sacked and the side suspended by the Ethiopian FA for the disgraceful scenes.

It's a wonder how it came to this. The fact that it wasn't just one idiotic player perusing and attempting to kick, punch or bite the referee, but several players on and even a coach on their side. They should never play the game again.

It's part of a wider issue about the treatment of referees in the game. The last taboo: being amiable to referees.

The wide culture of poor decisions somehow comes down to a plethora of individual mistakes, rather than the realisation that, perhaps, refereeing is extremely tough and to get every decision in a game right is near-on impossible.

Indeed, in sport, especially in football, where so much is at stake, where tempers run so high, there must be levity, room for players to challenge decisions and air their frustration. But this can lead to abuse.

Of course, this in Ethiopia isn't an isolated incident. There countless cases of referees getting attacked but it's rarely touched by the mainstream media. Sometimes it's non-league, where referees who are brutally attack are volunteering.

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Topics: Football News, Football

Jacque Talbot

Jacque Talbot is a journalist and sports writer at SPORTbible. He graduated from Manchester Metropolitan with a BA in English and Film. He is a football, snooker, and basketball enthusiast and has been published in the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Set Pieces, Planet Football and the Morning Star. He’s the greatest thing to come out of Essex since Nick Frost.

@Jac_Talbot