A Liga MX referee will have a hearing to protest his recent firing, which he says is racially motivated. Adalid Maganda was officially let go by the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) on Tuesday. A statement announcing the decision slammed the referee for poor performance, moonlighting in non-sanctioned matches during the pandemic, and a lack of familiarity with VAR.
Maganda last worked on January 10, calling a Liga MX match between Toluca and Queretaro in which he drew ire from players and fans alike for missing key calls. However, Maganda fired back, accusing Arturo Brizio, Mexico's head of the refereeing committee, of a personal vendetta in which skin color played a part in the decision. "[Brizio] is doing harm to referees in Mexico," Maganda said on Tuesday, in an interview with Futbol Picante on ESPN Deportes. "This man, with all due respect, is not right for this job. He's right for a job on TV [giving referee analysis], but not to lead the committee." Maganda stated he was not given proper training on VAR, claiming that while the FMF offered courses for referees as the technology was rolled out, Brizio never included him on the list of those who should receive the lessons. Though Brizio's video review of Maganda's last match appeared to defend and uphold many of the referee's decisions, he was not selected for any Liga MX matches since then. and he was ultimately fired.
The 36-year-old referee is perhaps best known in Mexico for staging a hunger strike to save his job from a previous firing in 2018. Maganda, who identifies as Afro-Mexican, alleged Brizio had referred to him by his skin color in a meeting with other members of the committee at the time. Following a brief protest outside the FMF offices in Toluca, Maganda was reinstated. "Mr. Brizio is very elitist," Maganda told El Pais in 2018. "He doesn't like short people, or people of color." Though Maganda was brought back into the fold after his hunger strike, he said he was given little opportunity to prove himself, at one point finding himself not selected to work by the committee between March 13 and August 31 of 2020. He said the inactivity drove him to referee an amateur match after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. "What does a referee need? To work so you don't forget the pitch, and that was the last option I had," Maganda said. Though he did not contract the disease from the experience, he was further sanctioned by the FMF, sitting out several more weeks of matches before receiving assignments as a fourth official for various Liga MX games. His assignment as referee of the match between Toluca and Queretaro marked the end of a drought spanning back to March 8, when he was appointed to call Tampico Madero vs. Venados in Mexico's second division, the Liga de Expansion. If he is not reinstated on this occasion, Maganda said he felt Mexico could put hosting rights for the 2026 World Cup at risk. Following the events in 2018, Maganda claimed a contact from FIFA, with instructions to get in contact with them if any other incidents arose from alleged discrimination. He told ESPN on Tuesday he plans to do that if the situation is not resolved in his favor. "If they take away hosting for Mexico, it'll be [Brizio's] fault," Maganda said. "FIFA will do that, for acts of racism."
In response, Arturo Brizio, head of Mexican Football Federation's (FMF) refereeing committee, denied there was any discrimination involved in the firing of Adalid Maganda on Tuesday. A statement by the FMF on Monday before Maganda's official dismissal stated that he was let go for poor performance, moonlighting in non-sanctioned matches during the coronavirus pandemic, and a lack of familiarity with VAR, among other issues. "Absolutely not," Brizio said in an interview with ESPN Deportes on Wednesday when asked if Maganda was unfairly fired. "He accepted the rules and has broken them repeatedly." Maganda has threatened to involve FIFA in the dispute, which Brizio responded by stating: "We're calm and we won't be blackmailed." While Maganda admitted to having officiated a non-sanctioned amateur match in his own interview with ESPN Deportes on Tuesday, he disputed claims about his physical fitness, and accused Brizio of not extending invitations to seminars on how to work with VAR.Brizio has brushed those claims aside, pointing to Maganda's final performance, a January 10 match between Toluca and Queretaro in which the referee stirred up fans with controversial calls, as the final blow. "The match [between Toluca and Queretaro] was very bad, in refereeing terms," Brizio said. However, Brizio's own review of the match only hours after it ended seemed to defend Maganda, siding with the referee on most of the disputed plays. The incident has prompted other experts to weigh in, including former Liga MX referee Paul Delgadillo, who believes Maganda's firing was not racially motivated, but handled badly by Brizio. "My reading is it's not an issue of race, but it's a pathetic way to take on the topic of a referee without a future," Delgadillo told ESPN Mexico. "[The refereeing committee has] no tact to tell them they're not good enough for Liga MX, they don't sit down and talk with them, and that's not just in Adalid's case."
Source: ESPN