FK Željezničar: A brutal and unsportsmanlike manner prevented us from a fair and deserved victory

The management of Football Club Željezničar expresses great dissatisfaction with the refereeing in last night's match of the fourth round of the BH Telecom Premier League of BiH with NK Široki Brijeg, which ended with a score of 1:1, reports the BiH news agency Patria.

- Our Club was prevented from a fair and deserved victory in a brutal and unsportsmanlike manner, and the disallowed goal in the final moments of the match is just the culmination of biased refereeing decisions against FK Željezničar. In that context, such a way of dispensing (in)justice, nor the behavior of assistant referee Amer Macić, who twice called non-existent offside positions and disallowed a regular goal in front of the entire public, cannot be considered accidental.

Our Club has already lost three points in the first four rounds due to direct refereeing errors. We are convinced that these are no longer isolated incidents and accidental mistakes, but an organized campaign against the Club that provides the most national team players for Bosnia and Herzegovina at all levels. We remind the public that our boys recently brought honor to Bosnian-Herzegovinian football and showed that, when they have fair refereeing, they can compete equally with European clubs.

Bad decisions against our Club are just a continuation of refereeing inconsistencies and improvisations that began in the spring part of last competitive season. FK Željezničar will hold an extraordinary press conference on Wednesday where we will address this issue and other cancers that are eroding BiH football. We state that we will use all legal and statutory means in the fight against the poor state of the refereeing organization.

The job of the refereeing organization is to ensure fair refereeing without favoring any club. We hold the head of the refereeing department, Salem Prolić, as well as the director of the competition sector, Elmir Pilav, responsible for the current situation. We call on the refereeing committee to sanction poor refereeing and take steps to protect the regularity of the competition, thereby enabling the title to be won exclusively on the field, and not through behind-the-scenes actions outside the field, as was the case in the previous two seasons.