AmaZulu FC boss Sandile Zungu says he is fully behind coach Benni McCarthy after his outburst in the DStv Premiership match against SuperSport United on Tuesday.
McCarthy and counterpart Kaitano Tembo were seen on TV having a heated exchange during the match, which ended 0-0, and saw both sides having a player red-carded during different stages of the encounter.
In an interview with KickOff.com, Zunga blamed terrible refereeing as one of the reasons for his sides early season struggles and can understand why McCarthy has been ‘agitated’ on the field.
💬 "The officiating causes your team to not even have a fighting chance."
— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) September 14, 2021
Benni McCarthy reacts to AmaZulu's goalless #DStvPrem draw with SuperSport United, with focus on the referee's performance.
“AmaZulu has been the victim of terrible refereeing lately,” Zungu told Kickoff.com.
“Particularly in our CAF Champions League match against the Malawian team. It was so terrible, zero out ten kind of refereeing. While it’s not the first time.
“So you can understand why the coach feels agitated because he puts so much effort into preparing the team to compete.
“I think that he’s got no control over how referees officiate and he’s human as well so he gets agitated.
“I’m in full support of him. We’ve always known that he does get animated, and we’ve got no problem with that whatsoever.
“If the officials feel his actions are worthy of yellow cards and red cards they will take action at the time. But we are not dealing with yellow cards or red cards for Benni McCarthy. So it’s all in the game.
“But we are deeply concerned with the quality of refereeing. We’ve been the victim of bad refereeing decisions. I saw that game as unfortunately I was not at the Stadium but I was watching it on TV. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with what Benni did.”
Zungu added that he expects the PSL will charge McCarthy for his actions.
“Why would they charge him? What I know is that the game we played against Nyasa Big Bullets was terrible. Benni was much closer to the situation yesterday, I was not at the Stadium. But what I saw on TV Benni had some justification for being animated.
“So as far as AmaZulu are concerned, we had a string of misfortunes, and things that are under our control we will correct. But things that are out of our control we will express alarm such as poor refereeing.”
