CAF have decided to suspend Egyptian referee Gehad Grisha for six months following his poor refereeing decisions in the Champions League final.
The Egyptian referee took charge of the first-leg of the CAF Champions League final between Wydad Casablanca and Esperance de Tunis, which ended in a 1-1 draw in Morocco. Fousseny Coulibaly put the visitors into a 44th-minute lead, before they gave it up after Cheick Ibrahim Comara’s late equaliser in the 79th minute. In a game full of incessant fouling and bickering, Grisha dished out four yellow cards in the opening 45 minutes, then twice went to VAR, first time to rule out a goal for the hosts due to a handball, before not awarding Wydad a penalty in the 57th minute. Wydad’s other main complaint was a red card shown to midfielder Ibrahim Nakach after he picked up two yellows in only five minutes. This led the Moroccan giants to lodge a complaint to CAF against the Egyptian referee because of his poor decision making, highlighting his actions in the two VAR incidents. And two days later, the CAF have announced that Grisha, who officiated in the 2018 World Cup, has been suspended for sixth months. The official
CAF statement said: “Following the first of leg of the Champions League final match played on 24 May 2019 between Wydad Athletic Club and Esperance de Tunis, the Referees Committee of the Confederation Africain de Football (CAF) has decided to suspend Mr. Gehad Grisha (Egypt) for a period of six (6) months due to poor performance.” Interestingly, the complaint was sent directly to CAF president Ahmad Ahmad, who recently fired his Egyptian general secretary and replaced him with a Moroccan.
