Singapore vs Thailand

Was at Gordon's place last night watching Singapore vs Thailand. It was a pure disgrace to the game in SE Asia. Especially that coming from the acknowledged powerhouse of the region, Thailand. What happened was that the Thai players all refused to come back onto the pitch to play the match at the 83rd minute when a penalty was harshly given. The players contested the penalty decision and their coach was furious with the call. Noted that this is quite common in the sport these days, the appalling part was that the coach encouraged the players to storm off the pitch and stall the game. It was a blatant threat to force the referee to rescind the call. What a shame.

These people are all supposedly professionals. The coach in my opinion should take the biggest fall encouraging his players to walk off. The 15 minutes wasted was just not acceptable. This is a game where the referee is given the authority to control the match. For the Thais to act like this, they ought to be disqualified outright. Future bans should also be given to the Thai team to make it clear such actions are intolerable in the sport. Disciplinary action must be taken to curb such behaviour. In all my years following soccer, I've never actually seen a worse case for a live telecast of the game failing than this match.

The next disgraceful part is when the Thais were interviewed about this affair. None of the Thais were willing to admit to their blame in this incident. That would be an even greater failure. There is nothing that can possibly defend the Thais in this incident. I understand that there would always be dubious calls and decisions. Yet, I don't think we should ever condone such actions as that of the Thais in the sporting arena. There is no room for such antics. Just imagine if everyone was to act like the Thais here, there would never be a soccer match that will play out its full 90 minutes as wrong calls happen all the time... Honestly, I've seen worst calls then this one before even.

The referee was too 'kind' in my opinion. He would have been in his own right to card the perpetrators of the rebelling and even call off the match and award Singapore a 3-0 scoreline for walkover. My guess is, the referee is stuck here as any further action against the Thais would aggravate matters only. What I can hope to see now is the footballing authorities in the region take action disciplinary against the Thai team. If this doesn't come about, there is no way the sport can move forward in the near future.