Freetown — Officials of Premier League clubs are urging the Sierra Leone Premier League Board and the referees committee to start punishing referees for making "silly mistakes" when officiating league matches.

Some coaches and club officials have recently launched a scathing attack on match officials, blaming the recent low turnout at the national stadium to their poor handling of especially big matches. Some football fans have also decried referees for "deliberately destroying beautiful matches".

Head coaches of Freetown City Football Club (FCFC) and Mighty Blackpool, John Ajina Sesay and Christian Cole are the latest technical men to oppose referees' poor performances on the pitch.

Following FCFC's recent 2-1 loss to FC Kallon, coach Sesay blamed the defeat to referee Nasser's bad officiating.

Nasser was also on the red the following weekend in the match between Central Parade and City Council after he disallowed what many believed was a clear goal scored by the latter; even officials of Central Parade admitted the referee's blunder.

For Mighty Blackpool coach, Christian Cole, Sunday's 1-0 loss to their traditional rivals East End Lions was due to bad referring.

He said: "I was very disappointed with the result because it was due to bad referring; that was responsible for our losing the match. My team played well but the referee frustrated us.

"We want these officials to start facing punishment; in other countries referees are punished severely if they fail to perform to expectation."

According to coach Cole, bad officiating by referee Sanusi Rashid and his AR2 frustrated the fans who reacted by throwing objects at the officials.