Thai Refereee Takes a Beating From Players

By: Daryl | February 8th, 2008

Thai boxers Rob Styles may have felt hard done by when the Premier League dropped him for refereeing the August 2007 Liverpool vs Chelsea match like a blind man. But rough as it can be in the Premier League for the men in black, it could be a lot worse. It could be Thailand.

Prakong Sukguamala was in charge of Kuiburi FC’s 4-1 loss to Kasem Bundit yesterday, where he sent off three Kuiburi players in a game that decided promotion to the Thai second division. But the players didn’t make sarcastic post-match comments to Sky Sports like Paul Jewell does. They went for a more direct form of retribution. After the game in Ayutthaya, the Kuiburi players charged into Sukguamala’s dressing room and kicked the living crap out of him.

Picture it like in the image above, except imagine the two boxers stop hitting each other and both starting hitting the referee, and then get nine of their mates to help. And no one is wearing gloves, but everyone is wearing boots with studs on instead. Ouch.

When police finally arrived and fired warning gunshots into the air, the players chased the poor fella into an office where he ran into a mirror, either extending his run of bad luck or using it all up in one afternoon. He eventually managed to lock himself in and wait for the players to leave. The end result was a referee covered in cuts, nursing a broken finger and needing 50 stitches. Or 16.666 recurring stitches for each red card.

And of course Kuiburi still aren’t getting promoted. 4-1 is 4-1 no matter how hard or how often you punch the referee. And the irony is that while three players will be suspended thanks to Sukguamala’s red cards, it’s now likely that all the players involved could face a proper behind-bars type suspension as the Thai FA have advised Sukguamala to press charges.