President of CONCACAF to review refereeing department

President of CONCACAF to review refereeing department

Published Jul. 30, 2015 4:31 p.m. ET

MIAMI (AP) The president of CONCACAF said Thursday he will conduct a review of the organization's refereeing department.

The ongoing review is evaluating refereeing standards and assessing the process for determining assignments for each match, the regional soccer body said.

''The foundation of our game is fair play, and we must take the required steps to reinforce the importance of this principle,'' said Alfredo Hawit, who became president of North and Central America and the Caribbean's governing body in May after Jeffrey Webb's indictment.

Webb and predecessor Jack Warner were named in a U.S. federal indictment charging soccer officials with racketeering, bribery and money laundering.

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Panama and Costa Rica made requests to CONCACAF after each lost to Mexico in the Gold Cup knockout rounds with the help of a questionable penalty kick.

Panamanian players posed with a banner after their semifinal loss calling CONCACAF ''corruptos ladrones'' (corrupt thieves), and federation President Pedro Chaluja later told reporters ''we feel that that game was fixed.''

The next day, Hawit announced that American referee Mark Geiger admitted he made mistakes in the match.

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