Dutch referee Björn Kuipers has unwittingly become the center of a scandal in Russian football. The reason is a reaction to a WhatsApp message from former Vitesse trainer Leonid Slutskiy. He is currently the head coach at Rubin Kazan and at the half-time of the match with Lokomotiv Moscow (0-2) he sent Kuipers images of an alleged penalty incident. Slutskiy thought that the Russian referee Ivanov should have given them a penalty kick, but the latter did not. According to Kuipers, this could have been a penalty, based on the images. Slutskiy then shared this conversation with the Russian media.
Kuipers responded with surprise in a conversation with Voetbal International. “I did receive a WhatsApp message asking me what I thought of the images. I responded: “Difficult situation, goalkeeper does not play the ball, so a penalty would have been my preference. It is not a black and white situation, so no VAR intervention either. It’s simple: in such a case I always support the decision of the referee. I get such questions a lot more when I don’t referee, from people who want to give my opinion. But are you saying that this message came from Slutsky? It says Leonid underneath, indeed, but I was under the impression that this came from someone from the Russian Football Association, a referee from Russia who I worked with once. His name is Leonid. That makes it all even more special.” There are rumors in the Russian media that the Euro is in danger for Kuipers. “Gosh, I have no idea, but I can’t actually imagine it. You are taking me by surprise. All I have done is answered a question and assessed a situation, without knowing that the message came from Leonid Slutsky and that he would also take it to the media. The only thing I can say about it is that they apparently value my opinion in Russia”, said Kuipers.