Jalan Besar "Fightmania"

Maybe the organisers of Unlimited Martial Combat can consider Jalan Besar Stadium as an alternative venue after Beijing Guoan Talent and Young Lions dished out a fight at different parts of the pitch perhaps even martial arts exponents and kungfu enthusiasts can only dream of.

Perhaps the feeder team from the defending Chinese Super League side could have been going on some gamesmanship. Perhaps they had been unkindly provoked on and off the pitch by the Singaporeans.

It was 1-1 on Tuesday evening at that ground, when referee Zaid Hussein, who is now fast developing a notorious reputation of losing control of games he is in charge of when the heats rises just a little, decided to abandon the game after the fights spiralled into a mass-scale brawl involving both benches and even a few Young Lions fans who were also eager to lay their hands on the young Chinese.

With Zaid around as the man in the centre, it was only a matter of time before a game in his care went totally out of hand. Albirex players could have fought with him. Tampines Rovers fans gave him quite a earful as he scampered and cowered under pressure. Any other team would have been privately baying for his blood.

While Beijing and Young Lions did not keep their tempers in check (more on the Chinese's inability to keep their emotions in control), a stronger referee would have dished out the reds to the players involved in the earlier bouts as a signal that rough play would not be tolerated and toughly dealt with.

It was not the first time Beijing had been involved in such scuffles, but the referees knew how to keep them and the other team in check. Some netizens were speculating about the Chinese team walking out like the previous predecessors, when the anti-Beijing Guoan sentiment among local football fans finally spilled over.

All these nastiness could have been prevented if the man in the middle knew how to control things. Even if it meant more red cards and eventual abandonment still because the teams did not want to comply. But a strong signal would have been sent.

Feted FIFA World Cup referee Shamsul Maidin was too happy rising up the ranks in the AFC/ FIFA calendar to groom strong future referees. Another FIFA World Cup linesman K. Viswanathan found the hot seat too hot to bear after succeeding Shamsul as Football Association of Singapore head of referees department.

Now the newly-minted man at the helm, Abdul Razak, has plenty of work to do. Clubs, players and officials were unimpressed by the recent declining refereeing standards in Singapore, especially in the S.League. And they were not optimistic things were going to improve overnight.

Tuesday's end-of-game fightfest only showed the incompetence of the elite referees Singapore football has at this moment. Zaid is fast entering into this author's referee blacklist -  only K. Kalimuthu has been on my black book so far.

Perhaps it is time for Winston Lee and Razak to have a look at the education of referees and wonder why more and more promising referees are leaving the scene.