07 December 2020

Birmingham City boss hits out at ‘worst refereeing performance ever’ in their match against Arsenal

Birmingham City manager Carla Ward has blasted the referee of their match against Arsenal for ‘one of the worst performances’ she’s ever seen.

Ward described Cristiana Hattersley as a ‘Sunday league referee’ and accused her of favouring the ‘big side’ when it came to contentious decisions.

Ward said: "I thought she was poor on the whole. There were five or six decisions in the first half where she didn’t know which way to give it so went with what I would call the ‘big side’.

"I think overall she was very, very poor. We are talking about the professional game here, and we've got Sunday league referees. I'm not going to dress it up. It was one of the worst refereeing performances I think I've seen.
"But I don't want to take that away from Arsenal because they're outstanding, probably the best team we've played all season, so credit to them."

Hattersley gave Arsenal two penalties during the match and despite missing  one the Gunners cruised to a 3-0 win.

Ward is not the first manager to hit out at the standard of refereeing in the WSL.

Manchester United’s Casey Stoney has repeatedly called for either more training or more experienced referees to be introduced in the league.

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