President of the Allies Football Club has called for an appropriate chain of command after a series of unethical events took place last week that had them removed from PNG Football Association’s sanctioned tournament, the Southern Region Club Championships where the top two women’s and men’s teams will take part in the National Club Championships.
Allies FC President, Joy Mataenge said, last week Thursday’s (September 19th) game was called off by the referee after getting consent from both captains from Allies FC and Hekari FC to end the game some minutes before full-time.
Mataenge said, they had some issues to sort out with Hekari but were going to raise those issues afterwards. A few minutes before fulltime, the referee called the game after getting consent from both captains on field after a player from Hekari collided with their goalkeeper.
“After their player collided with our goalkeeper, she couldn’t get up so eight people had to carry her off the field and then the players walked to the technical area to then take the field. The referee called for the two captains and asked to call off the game. The two captains gave their consent and said ‘OKAY’ for the game to be called off.”
“After the referee blew the whistle, to us that means game over, so we walked off to go and see our player who was laying on the side of the field after the referee blew the whistle.”
Mataenge stated that, while the team walked off after the whistle was blown confirming that the game was over, their opponent saw it as the Allies team walking out of the match, stating it as a ‘Match Abandonment’.
“They were leading, and we accepted the defeat from Hekari. But it was reported in one of the papers that we protested. But we did not protest.”
While trying to smug off Thursday’s incident and continue into the competition on Friday 20th September, Allies FC were told by the officials that they were not supposed to take the field and play and their officials were not supposed to go to the bench.
“When our girls started taking over and leading, they told our coach that he was not supposed to sit at the bench because he instigated the ‘Walk Off’ on Thursday.”
She said after the ladies played and won the game; the games officials sent one of their representatives to inform them that they were disqualified from the competition after taking second place on the ladder as per the games officials email.
Allies FC Captain Calista Maneo expressed disappointment at the match officials at the way they relied on the message to inform the club that they are officially out of the competition.
Maneo voiced her displeasure with the match officials for not going through the right process to notify the team that they are now officially eliminated from the competition.
“As a captain, we are not happy at the way they carried this out. They should come and tell our management and coaches and sort out the issue in a right way. But no, they just sent one person to-go-come and tell us players and management that we are out of the competition, and we are not happy about this.”
Mataenge further stated, “I saw that the MA president was with them (match officials) which was not supposed to be the way. She is the owner of a club playing in this competition. So, she should have stayed away and let PNGFA make the decision.”
Mataenge said decisions were made prematurely and attempts to appeal were not entertained therefore proper investigations and negotiations need to take place before such decisions are made.