Mexico’s football federation have launched an investigation after footage emerged of a referee appearing to knee a player in the groin during America’s Liga MX match against Leon on Saturday.
#LigaMx 🇲🇽
¡No se puede creer! ¡Inaudito!
El árbitro Fernando Hernández le
dió un rodillazo al futbolista Lucas
Romero de @clubleonfc. pic.twitter.com/b7RYdDGKgV— Xavi (@XaviSol_) April 2, 2023
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Television footage showed referee Fernando Hernandez kneeing Leon’s Lucas Romero as the midfielder and his teammates angrily demanded a VAR review after America scored an equaliser.
Romero did not call for Hernandez to be punished and said that the incident was a misunderstanding.
“Obviously [referees] are human beings, many times they can make mistakes and those mistakes end up developing what happened, a lot of misunderstandings,” the Argentinian told Mexican broadcaster TUDN after the 2-2 draw.
“I’m not asking for anything [any form of punishment], he told me it was unintentional. But just that they also respect us as we respect them on the pitch because they are the authority.”
Former referee Felipe Ramos Rizo said that the action by the referee was “unacceptable.”
“The referee kneed the Leon player, this could cost Fernando Hernandez his career. How do you explain this aggression of the referee?” he wrote on Twitter.
He added that the president of the refereeing commission and its director of instruction will have to provide a “good explanation.”
