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3-2

  • 09/11/19
  • By Aidah Aboubacar
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Given the fact that he abandoned the Game for no apparent reason, while we were winning, it would be extremely unfair towards our team to make us replay the game

I want to report the abuse of authority from today's referee (Gary Manville-Dickens) who treated Diversity players in an incredibly demeaning way, for no reason (or if any we would like to know it).
First of all, before the beginning of the game, he spent time with the opposite team talking, we later understood that their main topic was Diversity as he told Falvi that he didn't confirm the game to the opponent team, which showed a lack of neutrality from him. I want to highlight the fact that when we played Lancing United, they didn't confirm the game to us either, but we didn't make a big deal of it or talk to the referee about it. Then during the game, there was an incident with one of our players (Arnold), who politely approached the referee who refused to listen to what he had to say and told him "you don't have a good record with us", thus judging him based on his past behaviour and discouraging him from talking to him about any other incidents. Moreover, the manager of the opposite team consistently contested the decisions of our lineman, and the referee only told him to leave the lineman alone with no caution. If it were Diversity doing the same thing, the outcome would have been very different.
Finally, at about one minute before the end of the game, which Diversity was comfortably winning (3-2); one of the Diversity players went to Mr Manville-Dickens to ask how long was left to play ( we don't know of any rule forbidding this as all the teams in the league do this all the time). The referee sin-binned him just for that, which we don't understand as sin-bin is supposed to be for dissent cautions, use of word or gestures questioning or undermining the referee's decision. None of these applied to that particular situation. Then, the player walked off the pitch, so our lineman went to the scene to find out what happened and the referee aggressively took the line flag off him and threw it on the floor telling him not to assist him anymore and shouted several times "go away, go away". Then incredibly enough the then former lineman was on his way to the pavilion (not on the pitch or even close to it), Mr Manville-Dickens chased him, invading his personal space as if purposedly provoking him. After chasing the former lineman few metres away from the pitch, he didn't get the response he was expecting, which is probably violence based on his statement according to which some members of our team don't have a "good record".
Based on all the information provided above, we firmly believe that Mr Manville-Dickens made his decisions based on his personal and discriminative perception of Diversity United. We, therefore, want to request a meeting with the committee to discuss this. Besides, we paid him his referee fees, and we are also going to pay for the pitch. Given the fact that he abandoned the game for no apparent reason, while we were winning, it would be extremely unfair towards our team to make us replay the game.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,

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Aidah Aboubacar

Chairperson of Diversity United
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