According to Mehr News Agency and quoted by Esteghlal Club media, Bijan Taheri said about the refereeing of the match between the Capital Blues and Sepahan: We thought that after the end of the league, the referees would enter the matches with more focus after a break, but in the match against us with Sepahan, we saw that Mr. Heydari, despite his high experience, did not focus on the game at all. This is despite the fact that there were no fans in the stadium and there was no pressure on the referee from the two teams.
The manager of the Esteghlal football team of Tehran added: “It is strange to me how he saw the scene of the penalty foul on Arman Ramadani but did not whistle, or that Rashid Mazaheri hit one of his legs and threw himself on the ground, but Mr. Heydari announced Jafar Salmani’s foul.” did I want the judges to pay more attention.
He emphasized: We don’t want the referees to whistle in our favor, but we only want justice. Judges should be more focused and accurate. This year’s league is more difficult than all the previous leagues and it is necessary for referees to have good physical and mental preparation. Our expectations from Mr. Heydari were much higher. In recent years, Esteghlal has lost many times due to refereeing mistakes and we hope that we will not see these incidents again in the current season and that justice will be done by the referees on the field. Dear referees, if they feel that they are not focused enough, it is better to tell the officials of the federation to use someone else instead of them in the games.
Taheri added: We are not seeking to justify the defeat against Sepahan in any way and we will definitely try to make the fans happy by getting the best results in the future and compensate for this result, but the fact is that we were hurt by the refereeing against Sepahan and For this reason, we complained to the match referee. We hope that this complaint will be dealt with and the referee of this match will be dealt with. When such mistakes happen in our first game, it is natural that we worry about the future and hope that our worry is wrong.