Davor Škerjanc slams referees after Tabor’s relegation from the Telemach First League: ‘It was criminal, maybe even worth an investigation’

Published on 22. May 2023 22. May 2023

Four years ago, they made it to Nova Gorica to compete in the
Telemach First League
and this year they said goodbye to the elite in Nova Gorica. Between the two matches in Nova Gorica, Tabor 1. SNL had many good results, putting some quality individuals on the stage, but this year was followed by a miserable end and relegation to the
2. SNL
. Davor Škerjanc, the president of the club from Sežana, is convinced that part of the blame for the farewell from the elite also lies with the referees. What’s more, the former footballer has spoken about the latter in a completely tongue-in-cheek manner, raising a lot of dust.

Read also

“PFour years ago, we won the first league in Nova Gorica, this time we lost it here. That’s life, sometimes it gives and sometimes it takes. We absolutely deserved more than we got this season, despite all the problems we all had together. And we can ask ourselves what problems other clubs had to keep us in the relegation play-off until the end. Not to mention the refereeing decisions throughout the season. That was really criminal, maybe even for an investigation. At the end of the day, we have to look ourselves in the mirror, both individually and in the management of the club. This year we didn’t do everything we needed to do to stay in the league. The last round showed us that. In the spring part of the championship, there was hardly a game where we deserved to lose. But we only won once in the second part of the season and you can’t stay in the league like that. The reasons for this are more often than not already known at the club,“, in an interview with
RTV Slovenia
in an interview with RTV Radio Slovenia, 37-year-old Davor Škerjanc said.

Arrogant, faceless and haughty

But the former young Slovenian national team player did not stop there. The former member of several clubs, including Olimpija, Koper and Triestina, continued:”The referees are in a class of their own, but I don’t want to talk about this match because I haven’t watched the video of the action after which Gorica got the 11-metre penalty and then scored the only goal. I will talk about the whole season. The referees have privatised the league and do what they want. It’s really funny. It’s not so much the refereeing mistakes that bother the clubs, but the way they communicate and the way the referees manage and run it. To be so arrogant, faceless and haughty. We have tried several times to establish a dialogue with them, but they are completely unreachable. Judges want to distance themselves from the guidelines in the modern world. Either they are incapable of normal dialogue or they are hiding something. This is what we clubs are most concerned about. They are always hiding something, they are not transparent. We don’t know which referees have been punished, which have not, what the consequences of their mistakes are. On the other hand, these referees are playing with the fate of clubs, players and ultimately their lives. Something will have to be done about transparency. Introduce evaluation, so that clubs evaluate referees. Then we could see how the clubs feel about them. It would show that some of the referees who are being pushed to the fore and who have officiated a derby recently are not trusted. For one guy in Slovenian football, I haven’t met a person who had a positive word for him. But he is one of the people on whom our judges want to build the future. What message are we sending to the public? That the main person is someone who is incapable of normal dialogue, who is arrogant, haughty and rude. There have also been plenty of mistakes, especially to the detriment of some clubs. Comparing us and Olimpija, the ratio is 80:20%. This is an unacceptable percentage. First and foremost, it is about the way judges operate and are managed. I think they are doing a lot of damage to our league.”