{"id":8185,"date":"2012-02-22T02:23:14","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T00:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/soccer-romanians-offered-money-to-change-referee\/"},"modified":"2012-02-22T02:23:14","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T00:23:14","slug":"soccer-romanians-offered-money-to-change-referee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/soccer-romanians-offered-money-to-change-referee\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Romanians offered money to change referee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

BUCHAREST<\/span> Feb 21 (Reuters) – The Romanian Football
\nFederation (FRF) made an official complaint on Tuesday after
\nbeing offered money to appoint a different referee for next
\nweek’s friendly against Uruguay.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

FRF media officer Paul Zaharia said the federation had
\nreported the matter to world soccer’s governing body FIFA and
\nEurope’s ruling authority UEFA after receiving an approach to
\nreplace Hungarian Viktor Kassai.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“We received a phone call from abroad and it was followed by
\nan email from the same person,” Zaharia told Reuters.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“He asked us to release Viktor Kassai to officiate another
\nfriendly and in exchange he offered us a donation of $20,000 and
\nalso to provide FIFA referees for the game against Uruguay free
\nof charge.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“At the same time the same person sent an email to another
\ncountry’s federation inviting referees to officiate the match.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The FRF, which said it did not want to disclose the name of
\nthe person or the federation while the investigation was
\nongoing, said the other federation had asked for an official
\ninvitation to change referees.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“We expressed our gratitude for contacting us but explained
\nto them kindly that we don’t intend to replace the match
\nreferee,” Zaharia said.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Kassai, 36, took charge of last year’s Champions League
\nfinal between Barcelona and Manchester United and also
\nofficiated at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Romania will meet 2010 World Cup semi-finalists Uruguay at
\nthe National Arena in Bucharest on Feb. 29.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year three Hungarian referees were banned for life by
\nFIFA over match-fixing in friendlies.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The Latvia-Bolivia and Bulgaria-Estonia games, played in the
\nTurkish resort of Antalya, produced a total of seven penalties.\t<\/p>\n

(Writing by Angel Krasimirov in Sofia; Editing by Sonia Oxley;
\nTo query or comment on this story email
\nsportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BUCHAREST Feb 21 (Reuters) – The Romanian Football Federation (FRF) made an official complaint on Tuesday after being offered money to appoint a different referee for next week’s friendly against Uruguay. FRF media officer Paul Zaharia said the federation had reported the matter to world soccer’s governing body FIFA and Europe’s ruling authority UEFA after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}