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The mix up regarding substitutes at the MTU Vs BEC game has been laid to rest with the decision from the TFA announced yesterday that the problem was too small to warrant a replay of the fixture. The match commissioner has been suspended. Rather than rehash, here is a clear summary of events from thai-fussball.com
15 minutes still to play and Gilbert Koomson received his marching order after a second yellow. As a result BEC-Tero took off Cleiton Silva, replaced by Ekaphan Inthasen. After Silva left the pitch, only two foreigners were on the field with Jovanović and Kharroubi. Takenori Hayashi should have been the next exchange for Tero, nevertheless been declined by the officials. Obviously they thought with Jovanović (Australia) there would be already one Asian player on the pitch and two are not allowed the same time. Which basically is correct (3+1) but not in case there are less than four foreigners on the field. BEC-Tero has already written a protest note to TPL and the league will decides how to handle this case.
Once again, proving it's absolutely impossible to over-estimate Thai football officials. How anyone could interpret a rule designed to encourage Asian clubs to make use of Asian talent as one that caps the number of Asians at 1 is beyond me. TTM certainly haven't run out & cut their Koreans in favour of European journeymen.
ReplyDeleteIt really makes me wonder if the Match Commissioner is actually a football man, or just some mate of Worawi/Vijit/On-Ard who needed a job. Hopefully he uses his month off to actually read the rule book.