A significant part of neutral fans are convinced that KHL giants such as CSKA, SKA, Avangard or Ak Bars enjoy the favor of the judges. There is a myth in public opinion that in a controversial situation, referees will always side with the higher status club.
In fact, anyone can end up in a situation like this: there is no system here. The most recent example is the story of the Torpedo – SKA match, when the referees did not observe a violation of the number of Nizhny Novgorod players. At the end of the match there was mutual expulsion, that is, the teams had to play “four against four”. But the army team eliminated the goalkeeper and started playing with five players, but Torpedo simply released the fifth player and the referees did not notice the violation even during the throw-in. For ten seconds, until the next stoppage of the match, the Nizhny Novgorod team played with an extra player.
Imagine what would happen in the hockey media and on Telegram channels if such a mistake occurred in favor of SKA. The famous “Give them the cup!” by Vorobyov. It would be the motto of the week.
It is not surprising that in the press conference after the match Roman Rotenberg spoke harshly about the work of the referees: “In a four-on-four situation, we removed the goalkeeper and the opponent had five players at the face-off. . The judges did not count them. Sometimes, during shift changes, it is difficult for linemen to capture the moment of the change, but one more person at the throw-in… I saw the video: instead of playing “five on four”, we played “five against five.” And this is the key moment of the game. The biggest mistake! Only the hardest. Everyone saw it. I hope that the respected judges will resolve it to prevent this from happening in the future.”
After such a brilliant speech, the league imposed a standard fine of 300 thousand rubles on the head coach of the army team, but the SKA did not agree with this decision and is going to challenge it.
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Based solely on the documents, the KHL’s decision is legally correct. Sports rules state that public discussions and comments about officiating by hockey players, coaches and other officials associated with the clubs should not be permitted. The disciplinary regulation establishes a fine of 300 thousand rubles for such a violation.
Roman Rotenberg
Photo: Grigory Sokolov, photo.khl.ru
However, in addition to the letter of the law, there is also its spirit. Were there any errors by the referees in the Torpedo – SKA match? It looks like it is. At least the league did not refute Rotenberg’s statement in any way. Things like this go down in history, such as the mistake of soccer referee Graham Poll, who managed to show Croatian Josip Simunic a yellow card three times in the 2006 World Cup. The Englishman forgot to send off the defender after the second infringement and only received the red card on the third attempt. He simply types the words “Šimunich three yellows” into a search engine and he will find many articles with headlines like “The most ridiculous mistake in World Cup history.”
Unlike FIFA, which immediately admitted a mistake in the story with Poll and Simunic, the KHL has not yet commented on this point. There are no releases on the website, no official statements, nothing.
Yes, Rotenberg could have remained silent at the press conference. Then SKA would have calmly written a letter to the refereeing department and they would have calmly admitted the mistake. Maybe they would even apologize privately.
But that wouldn’t change anything. Even after Rotenberg’s angry speech, the referees continued to make serious mistakes. Already in the next match against Lokomotiv, the judges fined the army player Ilya Fedotov, for which they even had to apologize.
Additionally, several years ago the league was extremely open regarding officiating. During the 2011 Gagarin Cup final, when a scandalous episode occurred with the dismissal of Atlant forward Fedor Fedorov, KHL vice president Vladimir Shalaev organized a briefing in which the referees admitted that they were wrong and it was annulled the disqualification of the striker. Alexander Polyakov, when he was head of the KHL refereeing department, easily communicated with journalists and in his comments he said more than once that his players were wrong.
Detailed analyzes of the referees’ work previously appeared on the league’s official website. The section “Explanations from the referee department” was periodically updated even last season, but there was more applause for the referees, and here they decided everything correctly, and they were right.
It seems that the last officially recorded error by KHL referees occurred almost a year ago, on October 8, 2022. Then Avangard suffered: a “ghost goal” was scored on him. After a shot by Magnitogorsk forward Danila Yurov, the puck did not cross the goal line, but was still counted. After this story, if there was any admission of error, it was purely behind the scenes, in personal letters to the affected clubs.
René Fasel and Alexey Anisimov
Photo: Vladimir Bezzubov, photo.khl.ru
In the new season there have never been any explanations from the refereeing department on the KHL website, although there have already been reasons to read the official analysis. Were there any errors by the referees in the Torpedo – SKA match? Perhaps it is the coach of the St. Petersburg team who is wrong, but we do not understand anything. But there is no information from the judicial department.
Furthermore, now even the referees’ disqualifications have become secret. Previously, the league quietly announced on its website that this or that referee would miss a certain number of games. Now we only find out about suspensions after the fact, when we realize that the referee simply stopped working the games.
It seems that in the current KHL the refereeing department has become an opaque structure that punishes any hint of discontent. And any opacity leads to what is called “fishing in troubled waters.” It is time for the league to draw serious conclusions from the situation, because if we continue to let the situation slow down, in the playoffs the accumulation of refereeing errors will grow to unprecedented proportions.
