The League Management Company (LMC) made a giant stride regarding ensuring that undeserving players are not punished wrongly when it decided to rescind the decision to award Enugu Rangers’ Pascal Seka a red card in their away game against Bendel Insurance last week.
Seka by virtue of the ruling is eligible to play for the Flying Antelopes at the successful appeal of Enugu Rangers when he could have missed about three games had his club didn’t appeal the unfair sending off.
While conveying the decision to unban the striker to Enugu Rangers, the LMC in a circular signed by its Chief Operating Officer, Salihu Abubakar stated that its ruling was based on the video evidence before the league organisers and the report of the match officials.
The circular read: “Rule C8.1 allows for a review of a red card decision where it appears that there is a serious and obvious error on the disciplinary decision of a referee to issue a red card to a player. Rangers submitted a notice of appeal against the red card issued to its player Seka Pascal during the NPFL Match: Bendel Insurance vs Rangers that took place on 25th April 2019.
“The referee in his report stated that the red card was issued to the Player for kicking an opponent in retaliation (after he had been fouled), amounting to violent conduct. Upon review of the red card decision and the video recording of the incident, there is no evidence to support the referee’s decision and reasoning as the video does not show the player kicking the opponent (such as to amount violent conduct) nor was the opponent in question the same person who hadfouled the player (such as to amount to retaliation.)
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“Based on the foregoing, the appeal by Rangers succeeds and the red card decision is reversed.”