February 15, 2007	Thursday	Muharram 26, 1428

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KARACHI, Feb 14: The Singapore Under-21 soccer team manager Dennis Ooi on Wednesday termed the red card to midfielder Hariss Harun as a "strange decision", saying the result would have been different had the decision not been taken by the Qatari referee.

"The second red card was acceptable to some extent, but the first one against Hariss was certainly a strange decision. The way the Qatari referee penalised the player was strange since there was nothing malicious on the part of player. The referee could have given him a yellow instead but red was strange," Ooi told Dawn from Lahore.

Sinagpore lost their second game against Pakistan 2-3 in a contest which saw Hariss getting a red card in the 43rd minute from referee Abdulrehman Abdou of Qatar while defender Zulfadli Zainal received marching orders in the 84th minute.

The Singaporean, however, said since the game was over and his side was out of contention in qualifiers, he would not be lodging an official protest.

However, he was certain the results could have been in Singapore's favour had the referee not taken what he beleived was a controversial and harsh decision.

"I feel the result may have been different if there was no controversial red card. We lost one of our players at a crucial stage. But what's done is done," said the official.

Ooi refused to comment when asked to suggest remedial measures for sub-standard refereeing in important events such as the Olympic qualifiers.

"I don't want to comment whether we should have referees from outside Asia whenever there is a match between two teams from this continent."

Ooi rejected the claim of Pakistan team manager Irfan Khan Niazi that his side was preparing for the Olympic qualifiers first round since January 2006, saying Singapore trained for the home and away matches for one to two months.

The manager did not agree when asked if the synthetic surface in Singapore on which Pakistan played their away game was favourable to the hosts. "Had that surface been an advantage we could have won the match, but we lost it 1-2 at home," he said.