August 22,
2004
The conduct
of Sinchi players has been criticised
once again after referee M Ganesan was man-handled in
their
The Chinese
players had also held up the match for more than 4 minutes in protest at keeper
Chen Si's sending off.
It came
about after Sinchi keeper Chen Si handled the ball outside his area & referee Ganesan flashed the red card at Chen. He was immediately
accosted by Sinchi defender Zhang Qinghua,
who grabbed & pulled at the referee shoving himself
aggressively at Ganesan.
At one
point, Zhang's antics included trying to pull down Ganesan's
upraised hand which held the red card. He continued arguing with the referee
for more than a minute and was eventually booked for taking off his jersey.
In apparent
protest, the entire Sinchi team then assembled by the
sidelines together with coach Li Hu
En for a mid-match team-talk that held the game up for more than 4 minutes.
Home United
coach Steve Darby was shocked & disappointed by Sinchi
players reaction saying he had never seen a player
man-handle a referee like that.
Li defended
his team by claiming that keeper Chen would not have been sent off if the
match was live on television.
The Chinese
coach said if the match was being shown “live” on television, such an incident
would not have happened with everyone on the pitch being scrutinized.