Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane accepts PSL sanction handed out to Gaston Sirino
Pitso Mosimane has accepted the sanction that was handed out by the Premier Soccer League's disciplinary committee to his influential midfielder Gaston Sirino‚ but says for consistency‚ the same must apply to other players who have committed misconduct not picked by the officials during matches.
The Uruguayan was suspended for two matches after being found guilty in February on several charges.
The temparamental playmaker was charged together with his club Mamelodi Sundowns‚ who were also found guilty of bringing the League into disrepute.
Sirino was found guilty of assaulting two SuperSport United players Dean Furman and Clayton Daniels in an MTN8 match in September last year.
Sundowns were ordered to pay a fine of R200,000 of which R150,000 is suspended for two years on condition that the club is not found guilty of the same offence during the period of suspension.
Reacting for the first time to Sirino's sanction‚ Mosimane said the official response will have to come from the club.
“I will leave it to the legal guys because I’m going to talk from an emotional part and say the player is out now two games‚” said the Sundowns coach.
“But somewhere somehow you say ‘are the two games fair?’ Are you going to appeal because if you appeal you may get five? They’ll (League) think you don’t show humility and all that.”
Mosimane said he had accepted that Sirino committed a foul and should be punished for it.
“My thing is not about Sirino. Sirino‚ of course let’s be honest‚ he’s also been naughty.
"I’m not promoting these things that he does‚ I’m not. And people don’t understand that. I don’t promote that‚” he said.
“He needs to go through that. When he kicked somebody at Maritzburg United and got a red card I said to the referee Victor Gomez is right because he just went over the ball. And he must be sent out.”
What Mosimane is hoping to see is the same that happened to Sirino‚ seeing that his punishment came after the football administrators had watched the video footage of the match, happens to other players who committ similar offences.
“We need consistency‚” he explained.
“I saw (Samir) Nurkovic (of Kaizer Chiefs) kicking someone… I think it was (Thembinkosi) Lorch (Orlando Pirates) off the ball. He hacked him. What happened about that? Do you get what I’m saying?
“There must be no special treatment and if we have to play without Sirino because he’s facing sanctions of doing 1‚ 2‚ 3 I don’t have a problem with that.
“But I’m saying there must be consistency because Sirino has been now sanctioned on a footage of the incident that happened on the pitch because the referee punished him by giving a yellow card but then they changed it and said no what the referee did was not enough.
“I don’t blame the referee‚ he missed it. But if you bring things back from the video footage I will say where is your consistency?
"Are the games all on television? So those who are not on television they’re benefitting.
“In my opinion you can’t have decisions that you took from the video from the match footage and judge on it if you don’t have consistency.
"Now you’re not fair to me because the one who’s not on television is benefitting.”